[derbOac]

I'm familiar with that 30 point differential because it shows up in research.

You're right that 30 points isn't that much if you're thinking about the whole distribution, but I guarantee it can be significant around the selection threshold. That threshold might be implicit or explicit, but it's there, and if it's enough to nudge applicants past it, it's significant.

[Hermitian909]

Sure, but having read a large chunk of educational literature I'm not aware of any alternatives with fewer distortions from parental aid. Grades correlate more highly with a good home life than test scores do, for example.

As long as we have "prestige" universities there's going to be some form of skills testing, and no one has ever designed an un-gameable test that can be administered nationally. The question we have to ask ourselves then is how we can reduce game-ability and I doubt we can make improvements that are more than incremental.

[lordnacho]

Would you have some papers I could google, or some keywords to get me started? I'm quite interested in reading those studies.