<p>In the first sentence of the conclusion of the article that was linked, the premise that begins “Although . . . .” is nowhere demonstrated in the article. Higher education has long been highly stratified, but the basis of this stratification has shifted somewhat from class to “merit.” I put “merit” in quote marks because what actually constitutes merit – beyond GPA and test scores – is subject to debate. And even the meaning of grades and test scores is subject to debate. </p>
<p>The article mentions that test scores do not well reflect intellectual or academic ability. The UofCal study a few years ago also showed that only about 20% of college success (first year college grades) could be explained statistically by test scores, or by test scores + high school grades. So any stratification of admissions based on test scores (even if it acted by an associative process as proposed but not proved in the article) does not necessarily sort students by intellectual ability or likely academic success.</p>
<p>When my son was applying to college, he was far more interested in the intellectual style of students than in their test scores. Several schools whose students had similar or higher aggregate test scores than Chicago’s weren’t at all interesting to him. If anything, there was a kind of negative association in his mind with such schools (even though he had the “numbers” to be competitive at any school).</p>