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"Gates said the experience of taking a class "where everybody had an 800 on their SAT and 5 on their AP"

I'm a bit perplexed by this statement. An 800 on the SAT (even before they changed the scores) isn't a huge achievement is it?

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It was much more difficult before they changed the scoring in the early 90s, but you're right that it really doesn't mean anything at that level. I didn't even know AP was around back then, but obviously nobody cares about a 5 on BC Calc or whatever. Gates understands that you have speak in terms more people can understand.

In the math portion, an 800 is a perfect score.

Even so, it's not a huge achievement.

It's 3 standard deviations above the mean, so it'd definitely be an eye-opener compared to the composition of pretty much any high school class.

That mean includes everyone that isn't applying to the math department at Harvard. What do you think the mean is among their applicants?

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