I prepped on my own and did really good, but I was middle class and had a lot of other advantages. Prepping isn’t just about having access to prep material, but coaching that encourages you to actually practice the material.
My friends and I all prepped on our own. It really helped to have that kind of friendly competitive mindset among high school friends to provide each other motivation to one-up everyone else. Of course all of us were middle class, and we were all raised in the kinds of families value education above many things.
If I had suggested to my high school friends that we "prep for the SAT" I think I would have been roundly laughed out of the room.
Right. So if a high school is full of that kind of kids, someone performing well on the SAT shows more grit and perseverance than my kind of peers. Colleges should rightfully award that.
It sounds like an award for breaking Goodhart’s law, but it’s amazing how many kids don’t know this one simple trick to getting good grades and getting into a nice university (study for tests using available prep material).
Absolutely. If someone isn't from a household that values the idea of test prep and education more broadly, that's a huge disadvantage. It's just the idea that if you can't plop down whatever a test prep class costs that, in itself, is a huge inhibitor is mostly not true.
That's what AI is for, and it does a great job of this today.