You're right-- there will never be a metric that the rich won't find a way to game. SATs will get tutoring (and in rare cases, cheating). If colleges focus on g

You're right-- there will never be a metric that the rich won't find a way to game. SATs will get tutoring (and in rare cases, cheating). If colleges focus on grades, there will be grade inflation. Essays will be bought. Interviews will be coached for. Expensive family trips will be turned into stories about personal growth. If we accept all that, the question becomes this: if you were a poor but talented kid, which metric would you like them to focus on? I was a poor immigrant raised by a single parent, and to me the answer is that I want them to focus on the SAT. We could never afford the prep courses, but the prep books were cheap at the local bookstore and free at my high school library. I took advantage of that. Now there are even more options, such as the Khan Academy's free prep course. There's even some data suggesting the free course produces outcomes that rival the paid courses[1]. Bottom line, the SAT gave people like me a fair shot. It can be gamed a little, but I worry that replacing it with a "holistic approach" will just become a proxy for social/class status that will penalize people like me. [1] https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/new-data-links-20-hours-personalized-official-sat-practice-khan-academy-115-point-average-score https://newsroom.collegeboard.org/new-data-links-20-hours-pe...