[Mick]

 It's really the only universal objective measurement.

Except it isn't clear exactly what it measures. I am "old" and remember back in 1966 the general belief was that the test was "objective" and that you couldn't study for it, so why bother? Subsequent experience demonstrates clearly that at a minimum taking lots of "practice" SAT test improves scores. Those individuals haven't suddenly become smarter or better educated. They have however learned to take SAT tests better than their peers. This practice often involves some significant financial commitment. This unfortunate fact has been used as a reason to abandon the test entirely. It is also undoubtedly true that some people are by nature better SAT test-takers than others who are in all other respects similar. That is a naturally occurring advantage that creates a bias in favor of people with that particular skill. The test result is therefore not actually measuring academic ability alone, but rather a combination of factors, one of which is test-taking ability.
 
That said, the SAT test is demonstratively predictive of college "success". One reason for that is that skilled test takers do better on tests than less skilled individuals. College involves taking lots of tests. However, there are undoubtedly some significant "objective" measures of other things that are predictive of college success present in the test as well. I think these tests should be required. I also think it is extremely important to realize that they have significant limitations.

I'm not quite as "mature and experienced" as you but way back when (for me 1977) taking the SAT involved (at least for my peer group) buying the 'test book" which had sample questions and doing some of them to see what the test was like.  As I vaguely recall it was not all that different from the PSAT we took the previous year (does the PSAT still exist?).  No one I knew took the SAT more than once, we also all took the ACT since back them some schools took one or the other (some schools took both).  And yes the SAT is an indicator of potential success in college, given the current environment and inclination to have objective measures for who gets admitted to colleges I can see it becoming more important than it was back in the day.

I took mine two years later, in 1979. I had such a mediocre score, I took it a second time and scored 210 points higher. I'd taken practice tests, but nothing prepares you more than taking the actual test.

---

Yeah, there were very few surprises in my hs class, also now over 20 years ago.  But things changed some time around 2015. Kids from my old high school, who in my day would have certainly gotten into UCLA, were getting rejected from UC Davis. Though I hear many of them found their way to Berkeley and Westwood after a year in community college.

It happened in a big way between 2008 and 2009. At my son's high school, something like 1/5th of the graduates had to matriculate at their safety schools, because the acceptance rates at so many schools dropped so precipitously. I remember specifically that UC-Santa Cruz dropped from 86% acceptance to 68% acceptance (it was 65.8% in the 2024/5 school year).

[Mick]

 It's really the only universal objective measurement.

Except it isn't clear exactly what it measures. I am "old" and remember back in 1966 the general belief was that the test was "objective" and that you couldn't study for it, so why bother? Subsequent experience demonstrates clearly that at a minimum taking lots of "practice" SAT test improves scores. Those individuals haven't suddenly become smarter or better educated. They have however learned to take SAT tests better than their peers. This practice often involves some significant financial commitment. This unfortunate fact has been used as a reason to abandon the test entirely. It is also undoubtedly true that some people are by nature better SAT test-takers than others who are in all other respects similar. That is a naturally occurring advantage that creates a bias in favor of people with that particular skill. The test result is therefore not actually measuring academic ability alone, but rather a combination of factors, one of which is test-taking ability.
 
That said, the SAT test is demonstratively predictive of college "success". One reason for that is that skilled test takers do better on tests than less skilled individuals. College involves taking lots of tests. However, there are undoubtedly some significant "objective" measures of other things that are predictive of college success present in the test as well. I think these tests should be required. I also think it is extremely important to realize that they have significant limitations.

I'm not quite as "mature and experienced" as you but way back when (for me 1977) taking the SAT involved (at least for my peer group) buying the 'test book" which had sample questions and doing some of them to see what the test was like.  As I vaguely recall it was not all that different from the PSAT we took the previous year (does the PSAT still exist?).  No one I knew took the SAT more than once, we also all took the ACT since back them some schools took one or the other (some schools took both).  And yes the SAT is an indicator of potential success in college, given the current environment and inclination to have objective measures for who gets admitted to colleges I can see it becoming more important than it was back in the day.

I took mine two years later, in 1979. I had such a mediocre score, I took it a second time and scored 210 points higher. I'd taken practice tests, but nothing prepares you more than taking the actual test.

---

Yeah, there were very few surprises in my hs class, also now over 20 years ago.  But things changed some time around 2015. Kids from my old high school, who in my day would have certainly gotten into UCLA, were getting rejected from UC Davis. Though I hear many of them found their way to Berkeley and Westwood after a year in community college.

It happened in a big way between 2008 and 2009. At my son's high school, something like 1/5th of the graduates had to matriculate at their safety schools, because the acceptance rates at so many schools dropped so precipitously. I remember specifically that UC-Santa Cruz dropped from 86% acceptance to 68% acceptance (it was 65.8% in the 2024/5 school year).