College admissisons tests were a typical thing at least half a century before the timeline presented in your article [0], [1]. In fact, the demand for standardized tests increased in the pre-war period because colleges wanted to broaden their base of students, which had largely become a Protestant elite. Even Harvard's admissions process from the 17th and 18th century was sensitive to designing a test that would not just select for those with privileged upbringings [0].

Historically, the alternative to admissions tests have been social admissions, where you are admitted based on class or family status. Despite all the problems with standardized tests, they are at least nominally meritocratic and independent of what an admissions committee thinks of your upbringing and heritage.

[0] https://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/2014/05/accepted-the-e...

[1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/609506/harvard-universit...

When you take away standardized tests and objective (if somewhat biased) academic measures, what’s left is nepotism. Which clubs did your parents get you into? Did you participate in the fashionable childhood activities that signify being in the elite class?

Is this the leftist version of American exceptionalism? I often find myself baffled by the claim that something common in most of the word like standardised testing as “white” or “racist”.

Testing basic knowledge is not racist. Removing such tests actually undermines democracy, as democracy is the regime that requires the most that each individual has a strong ability in assessing situations in a quantified and calculated manner. That is how the voting system gets close to an effective decision process.

Didn’t China invent standardized testing like 2000 years ago? And don’t test-based admissions tend to make schools more Asian, not more white?

Standardized tests enable selecting a diverse student body by selecting the candidates who are most likely to succeed from within each group instead of selecting from each group at random, which will result in more dropouts and failures.

71% of the US population is white.

34-40% of Harvard students are white.

26% of Stanford students are white.

Yeah, sounds like a really valid conspiracy you have there