I live in slovenia, and the system is pretty much unchanged from the socialist times.... standardized testing + grades are used to get entry into colleges (and previously high schools). No resumes, no diversity/affirmative actions, clubs, volounteering etc... just grades+results.
Those other things are great, but have little value in terms of academic success. I think that for people who do poorly in academics but well in those other areas should have other avenues of advancing themselves rather than being forced through the college funnel.
It could be nice if access to education is equitable.
In chile we also have grades + standardized test + ranking (your position versus your cohort). But the top universities are filled with the top alumni from expensive private schools because they are usually 1. given inflated grades 2. trained to perform well on standardized tests (in their own schools, theyre rich so they can afford this).
If you look at OECD statistics with regards to quality of education you will see that not everyone in the USA really gets a good primary (and secondary) education and there are gaps. This tends to not be the case in most of Europe... So are standardized exams good for admissions in the USA? Not sure. But obviously replacing it with curriculum might even be worse. So what's really the answer?
At least here in the US, test prep isn't actually effective at increasing test scores. The SATs were introduced in order to allow kids of lesser economic backgrounds to get access to prestigious colleges without having to go to expensive preparatory schools. And they have been largely successful in that regard.
The problem in the US is that, for political reasons, colleges have been trying to get away from standardized tests.
The lower performing areas in the US tend to have one of two problems:
1) Very high percentage of immigrants and / or English as a second language learners. These students have multiple disadvantages.
2) A local culture that dismisses education. Two personal anecdotes: One poor rural white 6 year old boy swore at and otherwise rejected his teachers authority. She was a friend of mine and mentioned many kids are like that there because the parents are passing on their own behaviors. Other anecdote, a black friend who grew up in an dense inner city said he was locked at school by his peers for "acting white" when he tried to get decent grades.
Number 2 is obviously more prevalent, likely due to most jobs not actually needing a college diploma and not caring about your grades in some areas, and the persistent crime culture in others (gangs in the cities, meth in the country).
Well yeah, but you still want the best performers in college (and later too), and things like these should be solved "back then" (eg. extra language classes... fixing culture is hard, but again, if your peers make you a worse student, you're still a worse student, even though you blame your peers).
Giving some groups a push, especially on racial grounds (where you group together bill gates' kids with bobby from a trailer park in bumfuck alabama on one side, and Will smiths kids vs some random kid from philadelphia fighting on a basketball court) is really bad... both for people who should be accepted on merit, but don't, because they're in the wrong group, and also for their later careers (do you really want a doctor, who only got accepted to college because of affirmative action?). Government paying for books for the poor, programmes for gifted students, actually "leaving bad students behind" (and having special schools for them, like we had), etc. would help more.
Same here in Bulgaria. The only extracurriculars that influence university admissions are subject olympiads. Students who reach the national finals are exempted from the corresponding tests (max grade assumed).
