The Test Is Not the Sorting Machine

Standardized tests don't create the hierarchy. They publish it. That's the offense: a number is harder to argue with than a warm letter, and harder to forgive. The College Board reports that SAT plus GPA predicts first-year grades better than GPA alone [S2203]. But in a large urban public university system, high school GPA predicted six-year graduation four to six times more strongly than SAT scores — so the defense of testing weakens exactly where most students actually enroll [S2201]. And when Taiwan's top university cut its near-total reliance on exam scores, the vast majority of admissions outcomes barely moved [S2202]. One reading: the sorting happens long before the test. The test merely makes it legible — which, as critics argue, is its political usefulness, letting segregation be described as objective science rather than chosen [S2200]. Abolish the test and the sorting doesn't stop. It just goes quiet.