Hm. So would you be okay with admitting someone who had grown up with less money and scored less high on math tests because he hadn't had access to the best teachers?
The author can try to rationalize the fact that she is the female token all she wants. The fact is 'potential' is worthless, what matters is realization.
On the other hand, there were other kids who worked on VR rigs in their spare time, designed solar cars, helped launch linux distros, created early ISPs, and invented NCSA Mosaic. On the whole, these kids probably didn't get as good of grades as the kids in the first group.
A world of pure standardized testing would have selected more from the first group and less from the second. I think this would have been a shame.
This [0] is one of the best videos about this topic.
So the student (let's call them Sally) was afforded a better education, and using their superior knowledge are more qualified for a position. So Sally should be told "Sorry, this spot is being given to Sam because they are an ethnic minority."?
Remind me how that is fair for Sally and not benevolent racism towards Sam?
Use the educational system to reproduce the privilege of social elites and then launder it as "meritocracy".
What could go wrong.
Why the scare quotes? On average, whites score a standard deviation higher than blacks on IQ tests, and East Asians score half a standard deviation higher than whites. IQ is strongly heritable (0.5-0.8) and is strongly correlated with lifespan and income.
These are facts. They do not disappear merely because they disagree with your worldview. If you start with an incorrect premise, there's no limit to how wrong your conclusions can be.
Let me be very clear. When I was 15 I took the SAT and got every single question right. That was undoubtedly in part because a) I grew up in one of the wealthiest counties in the country b) my parents got me private math tutoring from the time I was 7 c) they read to me from an early age d) they sent me to private school e) I could go on, but you get the point. If you do well on these tests, good for you! But the idea that they are unaffected by confounding factors like income, education, and stereotype threat is absurd. These false beliefs that we can just give people a test to measure true talent worry me in light of Silicon Valley's incredible lack of diversity.
If IQ tests worked as you described, then in studies of twins going adopted into different households, we should see life outcomes correlated more with foster family than with each other. It turns out that twin life outcomes are very closely correlated with each other and strongly with IQ tests than they are to rearing family.
Your beliefs are the ones that are false, sorry.