They look at "life experience" factors. Grades, of course, but also extracurricular activities such as school clubs, volunteering, activism, socioeconomic background and so forth.

The aim was to include as many varieties of these factors as possible in the student population to boost diversity without directly referencing skin color (which would be illegal).

There's a lot of antipathy towards standardized tests as things that disadvantage kids who don't test well, despite it being much cheaper and less time intensive to prepare for the test than it is to join a bunch of clubs and spend your weekends volunteering.

It turns out that removing the standardized testing requirement led to a lot of students wasting their money on courses that they weren't at all prepared to take.

- Had high school diploma (or equivalent).

- Resident of the state for >6 months (student or one parent).

- ACT score of something like 21. With provisional admission granted to students with scores below, until they completed all first year engineering courses with a B or better.

So likely they just dropped the concept of provisional admission. All that did was open up classes for registration a week later to ensure other students were able to get their preferred class openings. Provisional had to take the scrap classes, like the four-hour, once a week Calc class on Friday night.

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

The problem is if you have a high school with low standards you're getting A's when you didn't deserve them.