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I'm not American so maybe I am missing some context. But how did admissions work without test scores?
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Not American either, but in the US many schools use/used standardized admission tests (SAT/ACT) on top of things like HS GPA/grades.

There are many countries, especially in Europe, where entrance/admission tests are not a thing.

Yeah, in England only certain universities like Oxford and certain subjects like Mathematics have separate entrance exams.

That said, the Sixth Form exams are mostly standardised with only a few different exam boards for the entire country, so the Sixth Form grades end up being something akin to standardised tests anyway.

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>We used a vibes based system based on how compelling a sob story you could concoct whilst staying on the good side of fraud.

Besides lost meritocracy, that is accidentally filtering for ability and willingness to manipulate others emotionally. Which feels really scary.

Honestly I don’t believe a thing they’re saying. Just look at the demographics of any Ivy League school and you’ll see it can’t be true
My kid applied to Brown and others and the prep company we hired ($150/hr) spent more time going through the "sob story" the parent talked about than any other requirement (kids scores are to be fair quite decent already).
I’m not saying that it’s dumb money to go with a sob story college admission essay, I just don’t think they’re being truthful with their experience. It reads like someone lifted a comment from /r/conservative about what they think the admissions process is.
Your comment sounds vibes-based
It sounds like yet another far-right racist spreading misinformation under a randomly generated username.

"Anno Floyd," fuck's sake, they have a severe brainworm infection to be mad at some guy murdered by police and the protesters upset by the situation. It is impossible to take a comment seriously with this.

Somehow majority of Ivy League students don't have those sob stories and did not had for last years either?