[jimbokun]

> People who are good at the SATs usually want SAT scores to matter. People who get good grades in high-school want high-school grades to matter.

Both of those have predictive value for success in university.

So if "merit" means "well prepared to learn the material in a university curriculum", these are both useful measures for predicting it.

[jmull]

On the order of ten times the people who apply and are capable of being successful at Elite University X are given a spot at Elite University X.

Yes, of course it makes sense to accept people who most likely to be successful. But what then, after that?

Everyone’s got an opinion, but what’s the use of that if no one understands the problem? Oh well.

[colinmhayes]

I’m not sure success at university is what they’re optimizing for though. Feel like it’s probably “expected lifetime donations”