Too much emphasis on the ACT

Class discussion on Wednesday has reaffirmed many thoughts  I have had since I was a high school student. I am glad I was not the only one to say that the ACT has done nothing for me. In fact I despise the ACT. Throughout my whole entire high school career, I was the student who always got my homework done on time, volunteered in every organization I could, played sports meanwhile having a part-time job. I took the ACT three times beginning in my sophomore year. Between my sophomore and junior year my ACT score did not improve. I wanted to take the class that is supposed to help students do better like a few of you said you took in this class, but I was not able to because of schedule conflicts. My feelings on this class that will supposedly help is since you have to pay for it is basically paying money to get more money aka scholarships. My sophomore year at my previous college in my composition class I wrote an essay on why I hate the ACT and why it shouldn't be used for college admissions. I wish I could go back and find that essay, but the point is that colleges put way too much emphasis on the ACT. This creates anxiety for students such as myself when there are so many other factors that should be taken into account more than they currently do like community involvement and GPA. The ACT makes me angry because I worked so hard in my studies, while some of my high school classmates would show up to school late and sleep during class all while get better ACT scores which lead them to more scholarships.
 Dr. Glassman mentioned how the ACT is only used to predict success during the first year of college. Why then is it used? Well thinking about this for some time I have come to the conclusion that the reason why colleges give more money to students with higher ACT scores is because it improves the school's image. If a university has a minimum ACT score of a 28 or 29 then they have "better students" than say universities that have minimum ACT scores of a 25 or 26. Another reason that colleges will base funding on ACT scores is because of dropout rates. If Ohio State had a dropout rate of 50% for freshman students and Michigan had a dropout rate of 25%, Michigan would be more appealing to potential students. Colleges are assuming that if students have high ACT scores, they are more likely to be successful their freshman year, thus not dropping out. Of course the reality is that students drop out for other reasons than just poor grades. Family emergencies, funding, and many other personal problems could cause even someone who had a perfect ACT score to discontinue pursuing their college degree.
 I don't think the ACT is completely evil, but I think that there should a lot less emphasis on it and more emphasis on community involvement and GPA. I received a 23 on the ACT which is not very good, but I have a 3.8 GPA here at Ohio State and a 3.995 at my previous college before I transferred. I have even received a scholarship here through the college of Education and Human Ecology. Looking at my ACT score four years ago, I would have been turned down by Ohio State. I think that colleges should have a minimum requirement that is an average of ACT scores and GPA where GPA makes up 75% of the total score and the ACT makes up the remaining 25%.
I found this opinionated article that makes the point that the ACT and SAT should be optional. There were many good ideas and reasoning going on. It really is fascinating. The link for it is http://www.gwhatchet.com/2013/03/07/justin-peligri-make-the-sat-and-act-optional/.