Standardized tests would be abolished because those suck on the fairness scale. Also on the accuracy scale, but who’s counting. It took me about ten seconds to realize that for the admissions process to be truly equal and fair, all applicants would need to be reduced to a colorless blob of plasma.

Standardized tests are ridiculous, and I’m my own best example of their utter crap factor: I’m a middle-class white girl whose family is educated and because of that I rock at standardized tests. I worked less hard than my classmates in high school—I studied only rarely. Even I could see they deserved a college education more than I did as they had done the work in high school and would continue to do so if they were able to go to college.
I skipped out on the two SAT prep courses my parents paid good money for. And still I did fine and dandy on the SAT and the ACT. I’m smart, but I’m not that smart. Standardized tests are a crock.

Equalizing the College Applicant Pool to Grey Blobs of Plasma
So, yes, I pretty much thought myself into a corner within 30 seconds of trying to mentally re-vamp the admissions situation. Here’s what I ended up with: the aforementioned colorless blobs of plasma who would all have to be interviewed one by one in lieu of the easily padded high school transcripts and college application essay (“Yes, my work as the president of the Lint-Weaving Club changed my life and the lives of lint-weavers everywhere. I also volunteered at Lint Weavers of America every Wednesday afternoon. Those grubby little lint-weaving faces were so inspiring, you know? There is just so much lint in the world, and it should all be woven! I feel very passionate about lint and the need to weave it. And that is why I belong at your college,”). And since there is no way every college and university in America will be hiring extra staff so as be sure to interview every applicant individually, that is not a possibility.

I can also see that equalizing the college applicant pool to grey blobs of plasma is not doable. And, sadly, most red-blooded Americans won’t want to see the Holy Trinity of the college application process (standardized tests, high school transcripts, essay) eliminated. Everyone loves vicarious, nostalgic suffering and there is nothing better than watching the next generation of college applicants have to run the same gauntlet you did. If we got rid of all the fake-able paperwork, the romance would be gone.

College Admissions Process is a Preview of the Real World
Here’s all I’ve got left (and this won’t work until technology catches the hell up): colleges scan all applicants with a special full-body scanner (like an airport metal detector, only different). Then the colleges could check out the applicant’s actual intelligence, their true potential, their work ethic, etc.

And since that clearly won’t work either, I give up. Maybe the only thing to do is to look at the college application and admissions process as a preview of the real world (a place you’ll hopefully be able to put off entering for at least four more years—ironically, only if you get into college). The real world is full of standardization, padding of transcripts and resumes, ass-kissing, hoop-jumping, numbers that mean nothing, people who excel at something unpopular so their talent goes unnoticed, and people who excel at the right thing and are rewarded extensively for it. In the real world some people look better on paper, and some know it will be mayday on the written, but they’ll pull it off if they can get an interview with a live human. Life is unfair, but everyone is good at something. Figure out what you’re good at, work your ass off, and eventually you’ll get where you want to be. Or you’ll be crushed by someone with better connections and more financial backing.