[_RPL5_]

Russians introduced standardized testing for college admissions in late 2000s. The stated goal was to curb regional variations in GPA (easier to get high GPA in a bad district), and to make it easier to apply to colleges outside of your immediate city [1].

The kids & parents have generally gotten used to the testing, but the teachers & educators absolutely despise it. You regularly see diatribes on social media against it. The crux of their criticism is that standardized testing emphasizes very niche test-testing skills as opposed to a holistic education.

But overall, I'd tend to agree - standardized tests are a good thing. They help streamline the admission process and make it less painful/variable, which is good thing for society as a whole.

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[1] Prior to standardized testing, each university in Russia held its own full-on series of admission exams that would take 1 to 2 weeks. Even if you were lucky and lived in a city with several universities, the logistics would limit you to 3 or 4 college applications at most. The "SAT" alleviates this, as most universities now use it as the sole application metric. So you can apply to an unlimited number of schools.

That being said, universities retained the capacity to do their own testing, for example for foreign students who didn't take the SATs. I think elite schools & programs (like a physics program at a top technical college in Moscow) may require additional testing. But overall, the admissions system they have in Russia now seems to closely approximate what you describe for Slovenia.