“it will probably surprise those who say “it is not what college you get into, it is what you do in college that matters”.”
Except that in many fields, it is indeed true that what you do in college is what matters. And even for those fields where being at a target is important, as I’ve shown, you can get there other ways so long as you show you are stellar somewhere along the way. The legal field being the only possible exception I can think of.
"In another recent thread, a poster mentioned that some employers hiring college students about to graduate ask for SAT scores – that seems to be another (much more explicit) example of judging a college applicant by something that s/he did while in high school. "
Yes, but that would also be a way to remove the influence of college prestige.