The recent decision of higher education heavyweights like the Stanford and Princeton University to stop requiring some sections of standardized test scores for their respective college applications is highlighting the decline of these tests being used to determine whether or not high school students will be successful in college.

The University of Chicago even went so far as to drop its requirements for standardized test scores altogether!

This is a mistake, because taking a test is by far the best way to express academic merits with incontrovertible results. Not only do tests like the SAT and ACT actually do provide accurate assessments of how well a student will do in college, they also provide a universal guideline that colleges and universities (especially selective, top-tier ones like UChicago that reject thousands of applicants annually) can use to compare and contrast applicants based on their academic merits impartially.

Despite claims that tests like the SAT benefit wealthier students and do not measure important character traits like personality and motivation, this article will establish that there is hard evidence suggesting that the SAT does in fact effectively measure general intelligence, a key factor in determining future college success. In an article written for the New York Times, Michigan State University Psychology Professor David Hambrick argued that the results of SAT scores correlate quite well with the results of a reliable intelligence test.

It is unlikely that anyone will make the claim that high intelligence isn't crucial for college success. There are other ways to measure competence of course, but that is what the rest of the college application (college essays, GPA, etc.) is for. Additional support for the efficacy of standardized tests comes from the testimony of Washington University St. Louis cognitive psychologist Henry Roediger III.

In a presentation to The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching Symposium in 2012, Roediger argued that testing "not only measures knowledge, but changes it, greatly improving retention of the tested knowledge." Roediger also testified that testing prevents proactive interference in memory, which is the cognitive phenomenon where older memories interfere with and convolute new ones.

Therefore, seeing that tests are a great benefit to knowledge in general, it stands to reason that high scores on standardized tests are a reliable testament to academic merit and should be kept on college applications.

Furthermore, the best and most common advice high school counselors and other college advisors give to students is to have strong extracurricular activities. But how do these activities make it easier to judge college applicants? It is often nonviable for colleges to soundly compare two students with impressive, but different extracurriculars. Even students with similar career or academic aspirations can have evenly matched extracurriculars. Let's take two hypothetical students both harboring ambitions to join the legal field someday.

How does one student being a member of the Mayor's Youth Council in Boston stack up against the other being president of a elite debate society in New York? Both activities are highly advanced and require an argumentative, legal mind, so how can they be distinguished? Let's also say that they are both amazing writers and create excellent college essays (a very common skill among applicants to elite schools like Stanford or Princeton).

Given the fact that every school in the country may have a different method of calculating GPA, it is practically impossible to compare these two students effectively! Tests like the SAT and ACT provide unbiased, numerical evidence of a student's academic merits and can, therefore, be used to assess applicants in the fairest way possible.

Many current controversial issues, like the current lawsuit against Harvard's admissions policy put forth by Students for Fair Admissions, stem from the lack of objectivity and impartiality in college admissions. Eliminating the objective analysis of college applicants done by standardized tests will only exacerbate problems like racial discrimination in the American college admissions process.

Having high test scores should not be the only way to get into a good college or university, but it should certainly be taken into account. After all, standardized testing continues in college does it not? What about the MCAT? The LSAT? The GMAT? Getting a good score on the SAT or ACT is not irrelevant, it readies you to tackle new challenges in your post-secondary education.