The availability of resources argument is flawed. All anyone really needs to do well on the SATs is access to prep books (which can be found at a public library) and a good work ethic.
That's exactly the same opinion I used to hold. If you think about it on the surface, it makes sense logically. If I can work hard, you can too. What you're missing here is the fact that having resources at your disposal from a young age also alters your mindset and priorities. And by resources I don't mean just money.</p>
<p>Whether you want to admit it or not, you have definitely been influenced by your parents a great deal. They originally instilled the importance of education in your mind, the importance of doing your SATs. That stuff doesn't just drop out of the sky. It doesn't matter if you have access to prep material at the public library or not, if you aren't instilled with those values to begin with, you won't take the initiative to use them.</p>
<p>If you can take a step back and try to look at things from a different perspective, I think you'll be able to gain a better understanding of the issue at hand.</p>
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<p>I'm not a good judge of intelligence since I don't know the Bush personally, but the media portrayal is seriously overblown. In fact, I think he probably feeds into it. Speaking pragmatically, without ego, it's better to have the public think that you're dumb and down to earth, than think that you're some manipulative bastard.</p>
<p>And think about it, his actions may have screwed up the country, but he's filling his own pockets and the pockets of all his cronies.</p>
<p>I couldn't retake my SATs because of money problem and my first SATs screwed up because I was sick and also I had to give that as standby as dhl express mail is expensive to afford and the collegeboard received the registration a lot later than I had sent it although before the deadline and when I only came to know about my check problem just before the test date because they were being non-responsive to my query on the internet and I can't seem to get anything through the long-distance international calls from here because I always get dced on the way. Next time I call, it's someone else... I have to explain again and I get dced again. Had around $40 wasted on that already. The check was fine... the banks here showed they had taken the money but they said they couldn't process the check. They suck at their work. Last year they screwed up the scores of over a thousand students and they had to retake. My SAT II screwed up too --- they said something about a money problem and when I queried further they didn't response in a timely manner and since it was not that I wasn't registered but that my SATs got scheduled a month later, I requested the supervisor at the test center to allow me to take at my desired test date walk-in. In other words, both my SATs were a horrible experience and had I the money, I could've used it really.</p>
<p>And as for SATs... many people with low GPAs do well on them... people who flunked at school. They just spend a lot of money on coaching and buying tons of books and preparing. Sure perfect GPA people I know have scored 2300 and even 2400 but half of those were nerds without any social sense with phD holders or other very educated people in the family while the rest were just constant hard workers whose parents supported them financially well too. And for the low GPA people... I know some who got into top unis and LACs because of their high SATs but they're going through hell now because being not so much of a good student in reality with low intelligence and IQ as well (just fast paced), the challenge is just proving to be too hard on them.</p>
<p>Obviously. And we need to define low-income. When I say low-income, I mean <$30k AND parents who do not care about educatoin AND living in a bad neighborhood. The SATs are a measurement of intelligence and a measure of resources available to a student. Even if you are really intelligent but do not have practice SAT tests or enough of them and you did not really learn good vocab in school you aren't going to perform as well as a student who was as intelligent as you who grew up in a nice neighborhood. However, this does not diminish the importance of the SAT's. Adcoms know the biases of the SATs (unlike with most other admission requirements) so they can still interpret them when comparing a poor 1200er with a wealthy 1400er.</p>
<p>I think AdCom would also assume a low-income kid had the chance to do better than a higher scoring higher-income one if they were able to go to the same PRIVATE school... in my case, I am sure they compared with rest of the applicants from my school ... most of them richer than me. My parents could only afford my school because I got fees waived often due to good performance and because I have no sibling. My parents' annual income is less than 10k and they still try to get me most of the necessary things although whenever I have to buy new books and photocopies are hard to find, they need to visit the bank.</p>