<p>I think we got lost in the middle of the discussion, and I am clear again where you are going. I agree that obession with the “average S/SAT scores” doesn’t make sense. Colleges and BS are trying to have a hollistic approach taking all factors into consideration as much as possible when making admission decisions because it’s true that test scores by themselves don’t necessarily determine one’s academic success in BS/college let alone the success in life. However, we must understand AO’s are not gods. When dealing with thousands or tens of thousands of applications many of which have stellar credentials, it’s only realistic to have a certain amount of consideration of the unquantifiable factors (on top of development case, legacies, URM, etc.) and they are desperate for more differentiators easy to be applied. Having high test scores nowadays is hardly an advantage but not having it can be a disadvantage.</p>