For many high school students today, taking the SAT or the ACT is as much a rite of passage as getting a driver’s license or going to prom. But the use of entrance exams is a relatively recent addition to the college admissions process. It’s just after WWII, and more and more students are applying to college. Schools decide they need a standardized test to help evaluate this new stream of applicants and to keep access walled off. The SAT quickly corners the market on elite schools in the Northeast. But a professor at the University of Iowa is about to upend that monopoly. He launches the ACT and kicks off a decades-long rivalry that impacts not only who goes to college but where they go.