which application system is better?

I really enjoyed the passage on the differences between the British and American college systems. During the dinner at Mark and Portia’s home, Helen, an English professor from England who was currently teaching at Princeton, raised a few good points that made me stop and think.
Helen was confused on why the scandal in the English department regarding a student copying a former essay was causing such a stir. I felt that the other people at the dinner were justified in their worry over the implications of the scandal because it would cast doubt on the academic integrity of the school; however, I felt that their justification for the worry was insensitive. They only seemed to care about increasing their applicant pool because serious English students might feel that Princeton was tainted by a cheating scandal. The whole increasing your applicant pool was just a way a keep ranking up and only affects the yield.
Helen also spoke on how when she applied to university she took A levels (which I assume is some kind of test), interviewed with the school, and wrote an academic essay about Mary Wollstonecraft and the Gothic. There was no personal statement and no real importance was placed on extracurricular activities or volunteer work. I assume that the A levels are tests like the ones that they have in Poland that you take before you can apply to a university. In Poland, you take three tests (kind of like the SATs II but much longer and more comprehensive), one in the Polish language and the remaining two in two subjects/fields that you want to go to school for. For example, my friend wanted to go for international hotel management so the other two tests were for geography and economics. I don’t know which system I like better though. I like how the SATs generally give an overall picture of a student but I don’t like how much emphasize is placed on them as a measure. I like subject tests (probably because I did every well on mine, I’m a little bias) because it tests you on things that interest you and give a measure of your aptitude. I always feel that an interview is pertinent. It allows a student who may not be an excellent writer to verbally express themselves (I did better on the interview) and it’s “off-the-cuff” so it’s not a well polished essay that took weeks to write and was proofread by many people (if the student even wrote it to begin with). However, I don’t like how there is no personal statement. It’s important to give a student some space to express themselves but I also think that there is no need to have three essay that basically say the same thing (I don’t remember which school it was now but for one of them they asked for an essay on a person who influenced me, one on why I wanted to come to Carnegie Mellon, and one on my interest/future career goals). I don’t like how the British system doesn’t find extracurricular activities or volunteer work important. However, I also hope that American schools recognize “bullet-pushers” students who do things for the sake of putting another bullet on their college resume.
Overall, it was an informative passage and I am sure that it exposed a lot of kids in the class to a different school system.