The US during the Great Depression had a few cases like this. I believe the NYPD placed people entirely based on standardized tests in the 1930's, and had 10 to 100 applicants for every available spot--and an extremely effective police force.<p>And here's a fairly politically-incorrect view of how CCNY, a free school that also admitted students only based on test scores: <a href="http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/iq.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/iq.htm</a> . What's amazing about them is that they have eight alumni who went on to win Nobel Prizes, all graduated in the same 21-year period, and the school was, well, not exactly Ivy League.
>But the teacher predicted that she would be asked why she wanted to study French, advising her to say she was doing it to serve the revolution.<p>Sort of like a Harvard admissions interview.