What can a college admissions officer safely predict about the future of a 17-year-old? Are the best and the brightest students the ones who can check off the most correct boxes on a multiple-choice exam? Or are there better ways of measuring ability and promise? In this penetrating and revealing look at high-stakes standardized admissions tests, Joseph Soares demonstrates the far-reaching and mostly negative impact of the tests on American life and calls for nothing less than a national policy change. SAT Wars presents a roadmap for rethinking college admissions that moves us past the statistically weak and socially divisive SAT/ACT. The author advocates for evaluation tools with a greater focus on what youth actually accomplish in high school as a more reliable indicator of qualities that really matter in one's life and to one's ability to contribute to society. This up-to-date book features contributions by well-known experts, including a piece from Daniel Golden, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in the Wall Street Journal on admissions, and a chapter on alternative tests from Robert Sternberg, who is the world's most-cited living authority on educational research. This book features: (1) An authoritative combination of voices, including college presidents, admissions deans, scholars from economics, history, and sociology, and test-industry participants; (2) New information on the racial and gender biases built into the SAT; (3) The only independent case studies of the limitations of the new SAT; (4) A step-by-step guide on how college admissions can go test-optional; and (5) Alternative tests to SAT/ACT developed by Robert Sternberg. [Foreword by David Hawkins. Contributors include: Martha Allman; Richard C. Atkinson; Chang Young Chung; Christopher Cornwell; John Douglas; Thomas J. Espenshade; Saul Geiser; Daniel Golden; David Hawkins; John Latting; Charles Murray; David B. Mustard; Kevin Rask; Jay Rosner; Chloe Melissa Rothstein; Robert Schaeffer; Robert J. Sternberg; Jill Tiefenthaler; Jessica Van Parys; and Teresa Wonnell. ]