There is nothing Positive about 'affirmative action'

[theyear12013]

In America I believe they use a Grade Point Average system. In the UK we use the grades from A Levels. Those systems seem to work pretty well for determining academic merit.

So the only thing you need to do is prevent corrupt admissions policies. That can be pretty easily prevented by anonymizing the grades. Have a system where the colleges get a list of grades / GPAs alongside a unique ID for each student. The college makes a decision based on the grades, and then after the decision has been made, a computer links the unique ID back to the student's name / address and sends the letter of acceptance.

Yeah sounds plausible enough. As long as grades include writing, art, music and other more subjective pursuits in addition to math and science - anonymizing them would be part of a superior system. And yes GPA is not a standardized measurement at all with it being different not just state to state but school to school. There is a national standardized test known as the SAT -- but it does not include subjective stuff like art + music. So most schools require you to fill out the full application with that additional info.

Sadly to reform the public-private university system in the US requires a sustained effort -- not seen since the civil rights movement of the 1960s that brought in the current system. And there are many rich families who would of course try to block it. But currently more and more people are calling the system a sham -- it is not a meritocracy at all. It also is not ethnically reflective of the national population.