Derb – I’m still noodling the idea (and crashing on a column), but I’m not sure I’m entirely persuaded. And the passage you excerpt is a good reason why. Murray writes:

“The 17-year-old who is at the 40th percentile on the SAT has no other score that lets him say to himself, ‘Yes, but I’m at the 99th percentile in working with my hands,’ or ‘Yes, but I’m at the 99th percentile for courage in the face of adversity.’ Conversely, it seems to make no difference that high intellectual ability is a gift for which its recipients should be humbly grateful. Far too many students see a high score on the SAT as an expression of their own merit, not an achievement underwritten by the dumb luck of birth.

Me: Let me unpack this paragraph a bit more stridently than I really feel in order to highlight my reservations.

First of all, there may be no perfectly analogous scores from a nationwide sample akin to the SAT when it comes to “working with my hands.” But aren’t there all sorts of ways a kid can find solace in his non-intellectual abilities? Athletics certainly come to mind. Indeed, isn’t the case for athletics as a criteria in admissions that sports develop and reflect character and perseverence in the face of adversity? There is no shortage of rankings, data points, scores and the like when it comes to evaluating accomplishments in sports. To be sure (and alas), high scores in basketball or football aren’t necessarily reflective of fine character, but then again neither is working with your hands either. Working with your hands is surely honorable, but that hardly means only honorable people work with their hands. There are also areas like the arts, voluntarism, activism etc where the metrics may not be as fine-tuned as the SAT, but they are certainly available for Mr. 40th percentile to assuage his self-esteem.

Second, why on Earth should “working with your hands” be a particularly important factor when discussing who gets into college? If your SAT scores stink, but you’re a great carpenter, you probably shouldn’t be going to a traditional 4-year college or university in the first place, in which case you shouldn’t be taking the SAT’s either. And the sorts of vocational institutions or programs you should be going to will probably look at more than your SATs scores regardless. Aren’t too many ill-qualified students going to college as it is?

Third, diminishing the hubris and sense of entitlement of privileged kids seems a worthwhile enterprise. But, abolishing the SAT would, it seems to me, strike only the most glancing of blows in that battle. As Charles notes, privileged/smart kids will still do well on achievement tests and still get into great schools. As someone who scored well on the SATs but was rejected from every college he applied to, my recollection is that these kids are smug more because they got into Yale or Brown than because they scored well on the SATs. Actually, on second thought, they’re smug because they’re smug. And really smart jerks are going to figure out a way to make the case for themselves no matter what.

Fourth, I’m curious why Charles cares so much about the SAT’s effects on the self-esteem effects of rich smart kids in the first place.