I can only speak for the Netherlands, we have a tiered high school system, and you can enter most university programs with just a high school diploma of the highest tier.

That's known as "tracking" in the States and has a history of racial discrimination. There's little chance it will be implemented in the states.

are you talking about diploma pathways: "advanced"/"standard" diplomas and things of that nature? because that's the norm in several states.

More along the lines of everyone takes a test and the top X% are in the college prep track, the next Y% are in the 2 year community college track, and the rest are on the industrial/shop class track.

oh, interesting. I hadn't heard of that. racial disparities appear in the distribution of different degree "tiers" in states that use those systems, too, and in some the degree you get in high school determines your eligibility for some types of college funding, so it sounds like it's a similar problem potentially.

That's interesting, it seems that this shifts the entrance exam of college to earlier in a student's life (making high school entrance exams much more valuable compared to the United States.)

Yes, fwiw your high school level is determined at the end of primary school based on your teachers' recommendations and a standardized test. But there is quite some mobility possible between high school levels.

Then the high school exams just become the de facto college entry exams. It still adds all kind of wealth privilege gates to who gets free tuition at the best schools.

If that's the case, it's a privilege afforded to about 50% of each year's students (Germany, presumably it's not much different for our neighbours). For people who don't qualify due to their high school education, there are opportunities to gain access later in life, and people who did that make up about 30% of each year's university students.

Obviously, nothing is perfect.

Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote_und_Studiena...

Sweden here, we have different quotas. They need to be balanced but for specialty more art based programs like architecture they might involve auditions or similar.

All programs have requirements, to take a STEM program you need to have calculus, physics and similar from high school. If you don't have it there's generally a system to study for a year to pass those courses, allowing you to change track.

The entrance is then essentially. (Checked my program)

1. 66% based on high school grades

2. 34% on a SAT/ACT like test.

The test is different though, no essays or other subjective stuff. It essentially has two parts both multiple choice, one testing language and one testing logic. Score is assigned by bell curve of all takers. Generally not as good predictor of student suitability as grades but allows people who just barely passed high school due to lack of motivation, issues at home and similar to still have a chance getting into their dream career if they are smart enough.

You can generally with really high motivation study for the test and raise your score a bit, not hugely though, and having that motivation is another predictor for success studying so works itself out.

People saying you just need a high school diploma and their are no standardized tests are misleading the issue.

There are STRICT entrance requirement - basically tied to your Abitur or similar. This means big waitlists if you are not a top scoring (on Abitur). European systems DO have exams and they can be pretty high stakes for classes. There are lots of quotas - as should be obvious given the education is free.

"The remaining places not reserved for the aforementioned advanced quota groups are filled following the Abiturbestenquote, i.e. applicants with the best higher education entrance qualification grades, and Wartezeitquote, applicants with the highest amount of accumulated wait semesters. The admission criteria within the selection process of institutions of higher education (Auswahlverfahren der Hochschulen, AdH) are set by the universities and institutions themselves according to the respective state law and their own requirements. Therefore, the AdH is not an additional application and admission procedure, but only one of several quotas."

In France there are two systems. Competitive and non competitive. Competitive is for med school and high end schools of engineering or economics / management. The entry tests are nation-wide and standardized. The non-competitive may have an entry test but non standardized. Both further tests are up to the discretion of the teachers.

There used to be public graduation rankings, but they are no more.

Ireland has a leaving certificate - 6 subjects graded and points awarded, those points are used as a gatekeeper for universities. UK has A-levels, 3 AP level subjects which gate University access.

i speak for italy, germany and france: there is no standardized testing. and thank god for that.

standardized testing is mostly a scam.