I’ll answer this from the perspective of a parent: I wouldn’t want my kid to go to a college where all that got them in was a high score on a standardized test. At an elite college, I’d want my kid to be surrounded by creative people, argumentative people, original thinkers…people with different life experiences…people with different paths and ways to get there…people who started fast and people who are starting slowly…
Kids who know how to look at a lesson and absorb it enough to get an A (or a 1600) every time are fine…but I would be looking for much more than that when it comes to giving a college hundreds of thousands of dollars.