@箐箐 wrote "用分数制不仅客观公正，而且杜绝系统性腐败。所以中国又该回去了。""这些不看SAT的大学走上了毛主席的工农兵的社会主义道路。" For people who are familiar with China, but not America, this is not a unusual sentiment, so it's deserved to be answered directly.
Politics don't happen in a vacuum, it happens in a larger culture context. For China, because personal corruption is rampant, so 只凭高考成绩 becomes the least bad option. Otherwise, if any soft criteria are used, they would just become the cover for admission based on bribes.
The U.S. has a different culture and political context. Since personal corruption is much less of a problem, the soft "holistic approach" is possible. It is mostly taken up by top elite schools because they have the resource to evaluate each student individually. Most state schools rely primarily on various scores, closer to the Chinese model. Mind you that many state schools are better than the best universities in China.
In education circle of China, there is a common saying 高考是个指挥棒。When your only criterion for college admission is the score of a single set of tests, you will fill your colleges with students who are great test takers, who are not necessarily the most capable in the real world. When you step out schools, into the real world, long enough, you would agree with this assessment.
The American culture is almost allergic to too much tests. No Child Left Behind instituted some standardized tests which are not that hard, but got huge push back. Even if you only let the conservatives justices decide admission policy, it won't be using SAT score alone. Everyone agrees that the elite schools could use the soft "holistic approach". The point of contention is whether race can be one of the factors or not. That's the American context for you.
Another bit of American characteristic that most people don't know: "In truth, though, the United States has never done well on international tests, and they are not good predictors of our national success." Not even when America was winning the Cold War, and starting the information revolution. I leave the link to the quote here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-stem-wont-make-us-successful/2015/03/26/5f4604f2-d2a5-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html?tid=sm_tw&from=timeline&isappinstalled=0
Let me end with more quote from the same article because it's funny and touching something profound about the American characteristics: "Thirty years ago, William Bennett, the Reagan-era secretary of education, noticed this disparity between achievement and confidence and quipped, “This country is a lot better at teaching self-esteem than it is at teaching math.” It’s a funny line, but there is actually something powerful in the plucky confidence of American, Swedish and Israeli students. It allows them to challenge their elders, start companies, persist when others think they are wrong and pick themselves up when they fail. Too much confidence runs the risk of self-delusion, but the trait is an essential ingredient for entrepreneurship."
