My cousins got in to Harvard and Yale. They had a portfolio of extracurriculars, service, etc.
The issue with SAT is that it correlates to IQ, and its been rules in courts that there are racial differences in performance that are problematic. Civil service exams have been similarly impacted - if there are exams, they are trivia and grammar questions.
Some dogs are highly intelligent and readily trained and some dogs aren't. You can guess by looking at their phenotype, i.e. breed, although not every dog of a preferred phenotype is capable.
Someone may be gifted at dancing. Someone may be gifted at singing. Someone may be gifted at hunting.
Why do we insist academic pursuits are equally available to everyone if we only throw enough resources at them?
Any selective program, music, athletics, military has a minimum entry level they're willing to accept. They know you can't turn a random person into an elite musician, athlete, or soldier.
Why does academia have to pretend that academic talent is evenly and randomly dispersed?
That being said, slavery and colonialism are clearly dysgenic. Slavery kills the brave, the strong, the honest, the compassionate, those who can see the bigger picture, those with self-respect, those who love their parents, those who love their children, those who will not be raped, those who will not be enslaved. It selects for the apple-polisher, the scammer, those who are best at concealment, the selfish, the ruthless, the wily, the drone, those who can bear endless misfortunes, those who can lift heavy weights.
"Readily trained" isn't synonymous with "highly intelligent," although readily trained is the goal of breeding. To be "readily trained" is to be obedient; ready to take the master's priorities as your own.
Even with full reparations and the lack of further obligation that would mean for the US, black people will be in the position of trying to silence that part of our brains that has been bred to prioritize the problems and the presence of white people. Luckily it was only 400 years of damage.
When you follow the narrative of white slavery, you’re taking a road that leads to some racists spewing whataboutism to somehow establish that slavery in America was acceptable.
Grouping all light skinned people into one made up ethnic group is completely disregarding their unique and special heritages, and the oppressions that happened between them.
The problem is that peoples assessments of whom is best suited to what doesn’t work with sentient humans as it does with pack animals or dogs. The conversation tends to degrade towards whatever social biases are held vs any meaningful assessment.
When those great minds of the 19th century were opining on this, they weren’t thinking about the stupid white/black/indigenous (with or without Hispanic) categories used in the United States. They wanted to make sure that Irish and Italian bumpkins stayed away from polite society - because they were poor and presumably unsuitable.
Anyone doing working/sport dog stuff 100% chooses the dog.
For instance, a friend of ours (has a pup from us) went through 4-5 litters where she was told “I have the perfect pup for you!” Only to have it not be anywhere even close. She eventually came to us, and we did have the right pup. And now he gets to sniff out dead bodies, ride I’m helos, and find lost people in the nm woods.
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At least poor people actually have some chance when it comes to standardized testing.
What’s expensive is the kind of extracurriculars that Ivy League schools look at when test scores are deemphasized. The kids in Chinatown don’t live next door to anyone who can get them an internship at an impressive non-profit or NGO, or near college professors who can help them get published. The parents working at a Chinese restaurant can’t invest the time it takes to get a kid to be world class in some instrument or sport.
Plus those are explicitly peacocking, in the sense of being a burden on the rest of your life while having very little chance of being useful to you, other than as a flex to get into an elite college. Very very few people make a living of any kind in sports or in music.
Having been that Chinese restaurant kid myself I can promise you it would have been an extraordinarily expensive way to get an education, in comparison to just studying the same old academic books.
Every time SAT is mentioned it sounds like it's completely separated from US schooling.
The norm in school is a grade based on number correct. SAT is a composite score with different weights and treatment of answers. When I took it, an incorrect answer deducted points while a blank answer was neutral.
When I was in school, the good students got 1280-1450, and the prep classes would yield 40-100 points in most cases. It’s an optimization exercise. If Johnny can’t read, Kaplan isn’t gonna save him.
The SAT is also incredibly easy. I got a 1200/1600 when I was in the 6th grade while going to a inner city school. I wasn't exactly doing SAT prep then.
it is not the lack of money that is holding the kids, it is lack of willpower to push yourself to top 10%/1%/0.1%.
It is hard work and not every kid can do it, considering all the leisure alternatives they got
Money==High SAT is silly meme that only lazy parents perpetuate. If money could give high SAT then there would be no need in Legacy Admissions in the first place! (Why need legacy backdoor, if you can hire tutor to get top 0.1% score?)
Not every rich kid is like Don Trump Jr!!!! A lot of them are quite capable (esp the ones who make it to ivies)