I just think it’s more complex than any single factor or goal. And I think there’s a free-market for private institutions so long as they’re not actively discriminating against any single individual or barring entire groups based on race.

Must these schools be gatekeepers for meritocracy? Or are they providing a world-class education as defined by themselves?

In other words, why should a private institution be required to serve a meritocratic function, rather than be free to determine for themselves the product they wish to offer?

What evidence do you have that SAT scores don’t correlate with freshman-year retention rates, 6-year graduation rates, and all sorts of life outcomes such as income, post-grad degrees, or book authorship, because I’ve seen pretty consistent evidence of those correlations repeated across decades?

GPA and family income correlate strongly, too, perhaps a bit more than SAT, but ‘school quality’ obscures the significance of GPA and disadvantages those from less affluent backgrounds, whereas SATs help such students demonstrate college-readiness despite poorer grades that might result from life events or other burdens.