Actually, based on a more “layman” term –
it appears that if you have all the quantifiable check boxes ticked properly (Eg test scores, class ranking, if provided, gpa, etc) and strong EC’s and recomendations and most rigorous classes – since you’re competing against a whole army (battalion? etc) of “similar” very strong/qualified/exceptional candidates, it becomes a “must be at the right time, right place, right interesting unique attributes that you have that you cannot control” kinda thing for those highly sought after unis? hence why i can kinda say it appears to be lottery - you’re made as a person/university applicant then - whether you were a great musician as an EC, or a great mathematician with robotics/python programming abilities, etc. - it becomes a matter of “fit” of what they want in the puzzle they’re making? eg the class of ✘ year. fair assessment/simplification?
Or just that people want to be part of an exclusive club, but then get angry when they are the ones who get excluded.
This is it exactly. An applicant can only control their half of the equation: their profile. The colleges control what they need to fill the class. Many, many students can have nearly “perfect” profiles, but the student cannot do anything to control (or even know) whether their profile fits what a college needs to round out a class at that given time. We only see half of the equation. The other half is the “black box”. Yes, some schools admit strictly based on merit or have a formula, but the ones that use holistic admissions do not. I am not discounting the value of holistic admissions or crafting a well-rounded class; I think that’s extremely valuable. I just think many parents fool themselves into thinking if my child does X, then his/her admissions outcome will be Y, not accounting for the “Z” variable in there, whose value is unknown.
As to the OP’s original question, @ucbalumnus got the first and major part, which is the the test has been rescaled twice. The second part is likely to be similar to the Flynn effect (median IQ scores have been increasing over time). The third is test prep as several posters have pointed out: In the dark ages, we were told that the test was an aptitude test and you couldn’t study for it, so no one did.
As to the broader question, is it a lottery? Combined with grade inflation, the rescaling of SAT scores results in a real compression at the top, which makes it more difficult for Adcoms to distinguish between diligent and hard working bright kids and the extremely bright kids. My impression is that there are a number of extraordinary kids (placed on the Putnam test or in the Math Olympiad or developed an impressive outcome in a science lab or published a highly regarded novel) who will get in everywhere as will kids of the mega-wealthy. Professors’ kids have a real advantage at the professors’ schools (at schools I know but maybe not all schools). After that, there is a big pool of containing diligent bright kids and extremely bright kids. The rescaling/grade inflation has made it hard to distinguish between the two groups.
Students and parents then invest in activities that they think will distinguish the students from all of the others in the pool, following what they believe the adcoms want, which has shifted over time. Early on, social missions abroad appeared to help but then that became de riguer. Recently, being a campaigner for social justice has appeared to help. But, given the spring’s protests, I suspect that will be deemphasized.
When I was doing alumni interviewing, I was impressed by the manufactured profiles that were created, especially by kids from private schools. They appeared to look impressive, but had a lot of surface gloss. I’m not sure if that actually worked. Over a several year period, no one I interviewed at my alma mater was admitted. So I think a lot of investing goes in vain – probably why the OP calls it a Powerball game.
ShawSon was partially homeschooled because although he was in the extremely bright category (his undergraduate advisor was quote in a newspaper saying he was brilliant in a certain area), he was/is severely dyslexic. Homeschooling was an easier way to address the prodigious talents (primarily in abstract reasoning so he could blow through HS Honors math classes in much less time) and the deficits (writing). As head of his homeschooling program, I was asked by a number of schools to write a recommendation and I explained my credentials and why I thought he was a lot stronger than a typical top of the high school class kid. I think he got into each of the schools that asked me to write a letter.
ShawSon should have attended top tier schools and did. Holistic admissions scared ShawD and so she opted out in a different way than described above. She chose only to apply to schools in Canada – these schools only use grades and SAT/ACT scores and are not holistic.
Note that highly desired universities in Canada like University of Toronto are huge compared to highly desired universities in the US. Then consider that the US population is much larger than that of Canada. Scaled by national populations, University of Toronto would be like if the top 30-40 USNWR national universities’ student populations attended one university.
So universities in Canada have much less need to distinguish between a huge overflow of compressed-at-the-top-of-stats applicants. They also have, for domestic applicants, more consistent high school courses and grades to look at.
@ucbalumnus, good point. Many but not all of the Canadian schools are very large. I really liked Mount Allison University, which is smaller. You are also correct that high school courses have a lot of uniformity so Canadian universities know what an 86 means and they don’t need to look at standardized test scores to validate the rigor of the HS.
The implication of having a limited number of (large) schools is that there is a much bigger distribution of abilities in each of the schools because admissions is not nearly as stratified as it is in the US. The top kids in science or math at Queens or University of Toronto would likely have gone to MIT or Caltech or Princeton if they were in the US. The MIT caliber kids will be in the same chemistry class as kids who would have gone to, say, Hamilton in the US. So getting top grades for a kid who might have gone to Hamilton is a lot harder than it would have been at Hamilton. (The distribution of ability at one of the MIT/Caltech/Princeton tier of US schools will be much narrower and bunched at the high end).
This thread is making me feel really good about my 1330 in 1986 (730/600 M/V).
Thank you all !!! I’m gonna call it a day and have a beer.
Though, in retrospect, I was a lot happier with my 780 Chem achievement
I’m right there with you. My 1350 (670/680) in ‘87 isn’t looking too shabby. I’m going to give myself a pat on the back and raise a glass 
later tonight. 
The 1350 was highest in my small, rural, non competitive high school. I felt pretty good about that until attending a statewide event for high scorers and met a kid with a perfect 1600. He was a genius. We were in many honors classes together in college and he dated my sorority sister so I got to know him well. Brilliant kid.
If they could distinguish, do you believe that Adcoms at top schools would actually prefer to admit the more diligent or the extremely bright kids?
I think they would like to distinguish and get the kids who are likely to be the most successful. If they choice were between diligent and bright and extremely bright but not diligent, they’d probably take a mix. If the choice were between diligent and bright and diligent and extremely bright, they would probably go for diligent and extremely bright.
However, the Adcoms have had a host of other considerations. Among those who are not extraordinary, children of the mega-wealthy, or recruited athletes, there has been a strong push for diversity with respect to protected classes (e.g., Federal categories like black, hispanic, Pacific islanders, etc.) but not others who are minorities in the US (e.g., Jews, Indians, Chinese). With the Supreme Court decision, that has abated a bit though the instinct for diversity is still very strong. They had been shooting for social justice warrior types, but again, I suspect that will be less of a flavor of the year than in the past few years.
They used to say that “We want well-rounded classes of angular students.” I wonder if that will become more fashionable again.
This has jumped the shark. Signed, an application reader for a highly rejective college.
Since the latter are likely a much smaller group than the former, they probably want as many of the latter as they can get, which would still be not that many, leaving most of the class for the former as well as ALDC-type applicants. I.e. being able to distinguish reliably means not missing out on the (very few) extremely bright applicants, with only a small effect on the diligent ordinarily bright applicants.
These adcoms need to strive to get students who will work hard. Sometimes those are students who flew under the radar in college. And some might not have exceedingly high standardized test scores either.
I would hope that the diligent worker who is capable and has shown so would be noted. And I think in many cases this happens, especially where holistic admissions happen.
As others have said, test has been made easier and renormed. So much so that John Hopkin’s Center for Talented Youth actually closed its SET program because the SAT is so weak.
I think it depends on the school.
There was also a huge push in the 80s and 90s for high schools to see higher graduation rates. In many cases, this was done by lowering academic standards in some manner. At the same time, post-secondary education became more important and more common. This changed the pool of test-takers and created a need for a different distribution of scores.
Also, starting around the same time, places like Kaplan and Princeton Review came along, adding test prep to the equation. It helped kids who might have struggled with the test, but it also attracted kids who might have gotten a good score with the usual prep (sharpening a pencil and reading the examples in the booklet ETS sent out) who wanted to ace the test.
While this site sees lots of high scorers, there is a very wide range of kids graduating from high school every year who will pursue more education after that. In my 1970s public high school, considered one of the best in our state, probably 2/3 of the class was college-bound. The other third wasn’t taking the SAT. My guess is that now 90% of those kids are college bound.
Re-centering was a response to a different, more inclusive testing population, no longer just the top half of the high school population.
Test score ranges of the schools that are going back to test required are likely to decrease as compared to their test optional ranges.
Separately, Total US average SAT scores and ACT scores have declined over the last several decades. I’ve never seen average scores of those who go to college, which might be interesting to analyze.
Neither ACT or CB show average score trends over time in one place, so third party sources it is.
ACT:
SAT, shown in chunks of time reflecting the same test. Notable deceases in average math and reading scores since the 2016 test update.
ACT and CB have also marketed their tests to some states as assessment tests that all high school students in those states take, increasing the testing population beyond the college bound and likely reducing the score distributions in those states.
So many factors have changed. When I graduated HS in the late 70’s, 1300 was the cut off for being competitive for the top schools. The admissions rate for HYP was also around 20%. Duke was the “match” at my school for the top students. Univ Mich was my safety. The pool of students going for the top schools or even college was much smaller.
In addition to re-centering, the test has also changed such that tutoring can more easily impact the scores.
Not so sure about that. The 1980s SAT certainly was coachable, although methods differed compared to more recent versions. Back then, what was called the verbal section was mainly vocabulary, so there were prep books of “SAT words”.
However, test prep in general was much less common then.