Remove names, gender, race from admissions. Have a selection board base their decisions solely on a combination of transcripts and essays.
I think standardized testing is gaming the system, what you cannot game are transcripts of life long learners who value their education. If you remove all gendered language, names, mentions of race from essays you will hopefully be able to make your group decisions with less bias. The group should be diverse enough on multiple metrics.
Will it be perfect, no. But I think it's a better start than what we currently have.
It's more like "gave a fuck about high school", so not really. The people that won that game weren't the smartest but rather the best at conforming to expectations. Although perhaps this has changed now that the dreaded Permanent Record has become our reality.
If somebody manages to don't give a fuck (maybe s/he's doing something cool on the side), and yet still manages to top on the exams, then why would it be relevant?
I think standardized testing is gaming the system, what you cannot game are transcripts of life long learners who value their education. If you remove all gendered language, names, mentions of race from essays you will hopefully be able to make your group decisions with less bias. The group should be diverse enough on multiple metrics.
Will it be perfect, no. But I think it's a better start than what we currently have.