UT Austin Reinstates Standardized Test Scores in Admissions

I never got very good grades in school. I read a whole lot of books on my own, so some teachers were cool with me. Later in life to get into uni I had a choice between slogging through and improving my grades in all thoss long forgotten, irrelevant subjects, or...study for one, standardized multiple choice exam. I chose the latter, broke open a (few dollars in cost) prep book, and got a high percentile result.

What's better for a young person who zoned out in high school? In many cases it may be the standardized one time exam.

It's seems a bit like a US thing to me. For the majority of European university studies having a high school diploma is enough to qualify. Even for foreign students, at least EU students, typically not more than a language certification. Only for some highly competitive (medicine) or skill-based (music, art) would additional testing be required.

Are the levels of high schools so different across the US?

'Those who opted [to submit SAT scores] had a median SAT score of 1420, compared with a median of 1160 among those who did not.

The higher standardized scores translated on average to better collegiate academic performance. Of 9,217 first-year students enrolled in 2023, those who opted in had an estimated average GPA of 0.86 grade points higher during their first fall semester, controlling for a wide range of factors, including high school class rank and GPA. Those same students were estimated to be 55% less likely to have a first semester college GPA of less than 2.0, all else equal.'