Elite schools can diversify without the SAT.(NEWSWATCH)

If selective colleges abandoned the SAT in admissions in favor of class rankings and other factors, they could achieve high levels of diversity and quality of students without relying on affirmative action, according to a recent report.

Instead, they rely more on SAT scores to achieve a higher ranking in the U.S. News and World Report listings.

Writing in the American Sociological Association's American Sociological Review, lead author Dr. Sigal Alon, an assistant professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University, reported on analysis of a series of longitudinal databases providing statistics on qualifications and admissions of applicants and enrolled students. Her co-author is Dr. Marta Tienda, professor of demographic studies and sociology at Princeton University NJ.

They sought to isolate factors that would best predict whether a given student would be admitted to college based on actual decisions, not what colleges ...