>on what basis is "how well they will do at college" the right metric use for selecting who to accept? Well, the underlying basis is the finite number of seats

>on what basis is "how well they will do at college" the right metric use for selecting who to accept? Well, the underlying basis is the finite number of seats for students. If you have a limited number of slots, you must reject some applicants. Therefore, the question flipped around is, "what criteria to use to reject applicants?" That leads into what I guess your usage of "basis" is actually about: the philosophy of selecting on the "doing well" instead of some other criteria such as... "economic disadvantages?"... or "local student over out-of-state or foreign student?"..."athletic abilities?", etc. You'd have to expand on what alternatives you had in mind. I think the "doing well" criteria can be defended by filling up the limited seats with students who will get the most out of college. For example, a student taking "Physics I" needs to know what derivatives are (Calculus). Having some slots used up by students that should have been in remedial math courses (Algebra) instead of flunking out of PHYICS1 is unfair to the potential students who already have the baseline math skills required for solving physics equations. Multiply that example across the entire curriculum required for a degree and the "doing well" criteria seems justified. You want to reject potential students who are not able to succeed at college-level course work. Maybe tests like SAT are bad/flawed but so far, they appear to be the "least bad" tool to predict which students will do well in college. One can create institutions that don't care about the assessment of "doing well" as an entrance criteria as long as the students pay the fees. That signal is provided by many colleges[1] that don't require SAT/ACT scores. However, the prestige and respect of those institutions don't match the ones that do. That negative perception in the marketplace is not uncorrelated to their acceptance criteria. (E.g. University of Phoenix.) [1]http://www.collegexpress.com/lists/list/colleges-that-do-not-consider-standardized-test-scores/2083/ http://www.collegexpress.com/lists/list/colleges-that-do-not...