We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The grade/score threshold itself is easy to game, which is a big part of why universities generally use a ru

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The grade/score threshold itself is easy to game, which is a big part of why universities generally use a rubric that encourages the admissions department to look at other things as well. For example, because of a quirk in how the grade point system in one of the high schools I went to worked, it was very nearly a mathematical impossibility for kids who took an extra class instead of a study hall period to make it to the top echelons of the honor roll. Creating a strategy where, for example, helicopter parents who wanted to see their kid named valedictorian would forbid them from taking that extra class, since doing so would have knocked them out of the running. Similarly, the college admissions exams are well-known to be poor predictors of academic aptitude. A big chunk of what they measure is simply how much money your parents spent on prep programs and tutors. This is even before we start digging into the muddy waters about the extent to which grades and test scores unintentionally measure factors related to socioeconomic background rather than academic aptitude, though there does seem to be a pretty robust body of research around that morass as well.