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>But this is exactly what SAT is intended to measure, scholastic potential.

But if you define the variable like this, you end up opening a can of worms.

Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources? Or should scholastic potential be the measurement of how a child performs assuming they had the same access to resources? Should children who belong to a racial/ethnic group that have social stereotypes of having more scholastic potential be defined as having more scholastic potential because of the effect of stereotypes and labels, or should the measure of scholastic potential be of the underlying potential if the effects of stereotypes and labels were equal?

Normally measurements of potential aim to be to measure the factors least impacted by other factors, because if we account for those factors we are measuring actual instead of potential.

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> Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources?

Yes. They do. It's maybe not the answer you were looking for, but if you are better prepared, you'll do better at the task at hand. Seems fairly straightforward.

The next question would be how easy are those resources to access (in the case of the SAT)? And the answer is you can do pretty well with a $20 test prep book that you can order from Amazon. The rest is time, effort, awareness etc.

Then we start getting into factors that are much harder to control or evaluate - parental involvement, guidance, nutrition, emotional support, etc.

>Yes. They do. It's maybe not the answer you were looking for, but if you are better prepared, you'll do better at the task at hand. Seems fairly straightforward.

I think you missed the point of the two questions, which is a question of what scholastic potential issue. What you are measuring is something that I might call scholastic actuality. It is how good they are with the tools they have. Potential is how good they are if we normalize the tools.

Granted, we don't have to go with that definition. If you want to call what I'm calling actuality potential, then that is fine. Just redefining a variable. But then we need a name for what I'm calling potential. Potential potential sounds a bit weird, but naming variables is hard so I'll use it as a placeholder for now.

So now that we have academic potential and academic potential potential, which should a person be ranked based off of when going to college? Given that academic potential is more dependent upon environmental factors that will change and be normalized between all freshmen (to some degree, there is still some differences), then should academic potential potential be a better predictor for success at college?

That isn't the complete answer, and real life is much more complicated than these simple equations. Just like emotional support can lead to a more mature individual that even once the emotional support is gone they have a life long benefit from.

But every metric used by colleges is to measure what you termed "scholastic actuality":

- School grades: if you didn't get the GPA you're already out of the running in many colleges

- Extracurricular Activities: if you didn't actually participate, then no one is going to look at how you might have done if you had participated

- College Essay: if you can't write you're not going to get any points here, no matter the potential you might have to eventually write something amazing

I don't see why the SAT should focus on some ethereal "potential" when everything else is centered on the current reality and not potential. Colleges aren't looking for the completely unrefined ore, they're looking for a diamond in the rough that needs to be cut and polished if you will. Not a bucket of rocks that are very likely to contain a diamond.

This is basically what I was trying to get at with my original comment - I think you did a better job of expressing it.

At some level you have to have to have something to show for your potential - otherwise there's no way to choose between candidates. Every single metric will advantage those who had the time, money, and resources to invest in developing academic aptitude. There are a small group of people who get by on developing musical or athletic aptitude but even those require time, money, energy, resources.

> Do rich kids have more scholastic potential because they have better access to resources?

Do kids with involved parents have access to more scholastic potential because their parents cared? Almost certainly, and that's a good thing and we should harvest it, not attempt to force something that is not going to work.

Once they are in college, the impact of parents is quite minified. So if you have a stupid whose default academic potential is 10 but has a parental multiplier of 2 for having involved parents and another kid whose default academic potential is 15 but has a parental multiplier of 1 for parents who don't care, once they get into college and the parental multiplier goes away the one who has a 15 should do better than the one who has a 10.

Now, numbers aren't that easily available. And maybe parents caring has a permanent effect that lasts even once they are gone. Real life is far more complicated than my example. But it shows a very simple possibility of why measuring potential while ignoring environmental failures can lead to a sub-optimal ranking.

> Once they are in college, the impact of parents is quite minified

What an absolutely ridiculous thought. Literally our entire personality, our study habits, and our grit come from our parents.

Perhaps, but it doesn't necessarily translate so directly.

When a kid's academic achievement is significantly caused by their parents constantly putting daily active pressure on them, the removal of that pressure can cause them to completely fall apart.

Apologies. I meant the ongoing direct impacts like forcing you to get up in time for class, enforcing a curfew, consistently encouraging time to be spent studying. The impacts on the changes to a child, are another impact, and one that is even harder to account for.

Take a simple example of waking up in time for class. You can have a college freshman who was taught by their parents to be up on time. You can also have a college freshman who always depended upon their parents to wake them up and is thus oversleeping.

The former seems more in line with the true potential, while the latter is a temporary benefit from parents. A kid who taught themselves how to wake barely on time will do worse than a kid whose parents makes sure they wake up with time to spare when parents are present, but if the parents don't instill the values of waking up on time to the latter child, then in college the former one will do better.

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