I agree with Val, no teacher recommendations or alumni interviews should be considered (too subjective). Merit only all the way - no legacy, athlete, donations, race, sex, extracurricular activities etc should be considered. It is ridiculous to say 'no' to one subjective or unfair measure and yet accept others.

Of course all this requires a test that distinguishes among top scorers SAT/ACT does not do this effectively when there are only few spots available, so how about asking for combinations of SAT/ACT, SAT Subject Tests and AP test scores?