I've heard about plenty of people who won large payouts in the lottery, it doesn't mean I'd go to them for financial advice. Places that rely on a single test or data point create perverse incentives to inflate the data point. I was a fairly intelligent student throughout most of my school career, but I flunked more than one class in college because of bad teachers who were incapable of teaching the subject matter(There was a single student who passed with a C in that class every other student failed, I passed easily with a different teacher) or real life issues taking priority (working a full time job distracts from grades). I agree with your statement that the issue is complicated, but perhaps some things shouldn't be simplified.