I shared this story with my Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo SAT tutors: At Harvard’s college counseling program last summer, one prominent dean of college admissions stood up and said, “Look, I know everyone loves to hate the SAT. But listen, every year we accept a few kids on the basis of their SAT scores. If a student’s school is obscure, if their teacher letters are short and vague, if their counselor letter is poorly-written, if their transcript or portfolio is difficult to compare to ordinary academic benchmarks… but they just might be that diamond in the rough — then an outstanding SAT score gives us the evidence we need that the young scholar can succeed here. ”