The worst thing about standardized tests like the SAT isn't that they can keep you out of colleges you want to go to (though that's admittedly pretty bad). It's that they make kids who don't score well feel badly about themselves. Low scores chip away at the legitimate pride a student has about her good grades, or basketball achievements, or artistic talents. Nobody in the history of civilization failed in life because of SAT scores (and nobody ever became happy and successful because of them either).
One of the most outspoken critics of the SAT is John Katzman, the founder of The Princeton Review. This interview with PBS took place in 1998, but it still has legs today. Here's my favorite part:
The SAT is a scam. It has been around for 50 years. It has never measured anything. And it continues to measure nothing. And the whole game is that everybody who does well on it is so delighted by their good fortune that they don't want to attack it. And they are the people in charge. Because of course, the way you get to be in charge is by having high test scores. So it's this terrific kind of rolling scam that every so often, somebody sort of looks and says–well, you know, does it measure intelligence? No. Does it predict college grades? No. Does it tell you how much you learned in high school? No. Does it predict life happiness or life success in any measure? No. It's measuring nothing.
You might also like what Jay Mathews has to say here in "Your SAT score has little to do with your life."
And every frustrated tester should get familiar with Fairtest's list of schools that don't rely on test scores to make admissions decisions.