Let me fix that for you, epiphany:
In any case, lots of those public students do not have the kinds of off-campus achievements that private students do. 
H, (and nearly every other highly selective school), clearly say, ‘No, we would not be better off without a standardized test.’
I have not seen data on the SAT to income correlations, other than those released by the College Board. JHS might know of more extensive studies. It would be really interesting to know how long the monotonic increase in mean score with family income persists. JHS’s statements are consistent with what I would guess.
In any event, the point is well-taken that in the highest family income range tabulated by CB, $200,000 and up, the mean scores are not going to get anyone into Harvard: CR/M/W = 569/588/565.
It is interesting that the standard deviations seem to be about the same, for groups with different family incomes.
I took courses in Education Research and worked in the field for a while, and it is no secret that there is a very strong direct relationship between a family’s economic situation and academic succcess, whether it’s measured in amount if education, income later earned, test scores, just about anything. It’s the same basic principle one is seeing here.
One sees this every year in my area, when the districts are all in a report with test scores and other indicators of academic success. The richer districts have the strongest numbers by far. Why would this be any different?
The sad truth is that a lot of the students who are given a bit of a boost for competitive college admissions due to economic and other challenges, often do not make it through a rigorous program. The drop out rate at my college was very high for some of such admits, and those who made it through often ended up changing their course of study from premed, engineering or other such disciplines to getting whatever they had to get done to graduate. This was even with extra support and some allowance given. The sad fact of the matter is that there simply are not that many competitive applications when looked at only at face value, no considerations made, for many who do have disadvantages. Yes, there are outliers and anecdotal exceptions, but taken on a large number scale, the trend is clear.
I have to say that I am much less impressed by the correlation between income and SAT score after actually looking at the charts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/05/these-four-charts-show-how-the-sat-favors-the-rich-educated-families/). The average score for students from families earning over 200K is 1714? Why are we talking about super-selective schools here? Does anybody really think that the average SAT scores from families earning $500,000 a year will be a lot more? I very much doubt it.
Personally, I think there is a limit to how much even the most expensive preparation can raise a student’s SAT score. (I don’t know if xiggi agrees; I’d be interested.) So maybe a rich kid can raise his “natural” 1714 to a 1914 with prep–but I don’t think he’s going to raise it to 2350 with prep.
The way it works is that there aren’t that many families earning over $200K a year, proportionally. When you get up to $,3-400K, you are up in the top percentile, but there is still a huge difference between a family earning that kind of income and those who are making millions. Yet in some areas seem peppered with the high rollers. In my area, $200K doesn’t leave a lot of money left for tutoring or private college counselors with the cost of what is considered nice housing, good school districts, etc. At my sons’ schools, there are those who are able to throw a lot of money into getting the test scores, grades up there, getting a resume and app together, there are those who are willing to dig in and do it themselves in terms of parental involvemn, and those whose kids are just motivated to do it all themselves availing themselves of the advantages and opportunities available which are many around here. The last category is still often much better off than those kids going to schools where the push is to prevent teen pregnancy, jail, homelessness, and dropping out of high school.
How rich do you have to be before you don’t care about your SAT score at all?
If there were a perfect correlation between income and SAT scores (or even intelligence, for that matter) you’d see the entire senior class of the public schools in Scarsdale and Winnetka and Dover and Atherton and New Canaan(substitute your own high net worth suburb here) being named Presidential Scholars and NMF.
There are plenty of dumb rich high school kids in America. There are public AND private high schools chockablock full of them. No amount of tutoring or cramming is going to get those kids into Harvard- heck, their parents are grateful when a nice check can smooth the way into “formerly a junior college but now a nice place for a preppy jock to hang out for four years” type of college.
The country clubs in Greenwich are in no danger of losing all their members to Mensa anytime soon.
Alas, and sadly, you make a rather lucid point. I am on the board of the largest scholarship organization for Asian and Pacific Islanders, that also derives a portion of its scholarship fund, via the Gate millennium scholarship—or that is to say, cradle to grave scholarships that pay for literally everything. So, while are attrition numbers look solid on the surface about 5% or so, when one drills down on the numbers for the pacific islander community–largely Polynesians from low income communities, the attrition for that sub-group is closer to 30%. Specifically kids were not dropping out of school because of financial needs, but rather it was course work and cultural disruption----
But I guess the point is that while being rich doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get a high score (even with prep), the question is whether the people with really high scores are mostly rich, and to what extent being rich helped them raise their scores. I haven’t seen that answered anywhere.
Hunt- my guess (just a guess, I am not a social scientist) is that there is a high correlation between the vocabulary of 5 year olds in America and their eventual SAT scores. Not that one causes the other, but that being read to, spoken to, i.e. living in a verbally rich environment during your early years is a very good predictor of your HS performance on standardized tests.
This helps explain the academic performance of some newly arrived ethnic groups- who might be very low in cash income and have no assets, but very rich in the type of social capital that propelled them to leave their country of origin, creating a child centered home life, etc.
So all things being equal, you will find MORE rich kids in the high scoring group (but also some poor and middle class kids who had similar early child-rearing). It’s not the dough- it’s the behaviors that often (but not always) go along with the dough.
cptofthehouse What do you make of the fact that there are students across all SES classes that have done well on the SAT/ACT? I think Hunt is intimating that there is more to getting a high score on SAT than just income levels. As JHS pointed out students from families earning over $200K/yr average less than 1800 barely enough to even think about applying to an elite school.
The fact is there are more high SAT students from families who earn less than 100K/year than over 100K/year. The percentage of higher scores within income is higher with higher income but in absolute terms the number of high scorers is dominated by lower SES students. Which then begs the question, why are top schools dominated by those that are in the upper income bracket and for many top schools half of their school’s student require NO FINANCIAL aid.
Hunt, I do believe that there is indeed a limit when it comes to legitimate preparation. The adequate preparation’s objective is to help a student achieve a result that represents his or her own capabilities, and perhaps achievement. The proper approach and techniques (some call them tricks) only go so far. The preparation has two levels: the low hanging fruits that are plucked by learning the format, refreshing simple but forgotten elements, and learning to manage time and avoiding pitfalls. This level has the biggest bang for the buck and often works better for the Math and Writing sections. Critical reading is a different animal as many erroneously believe that it is a matter or “learning more words” instead on focusing on developing better approaches that are based on heightening attention and logic.
I made a distinction for legitimate preparation, as and unfortunately so, there are various forces who profit handsomely from TCB’s egregious lack of security (and attention) outside the US. In a global world, this lack of security has permeated in various parts of the US. Accordingly, where there is beaucoup dollars involved, the expensive preparation might take a different twist.
I hope you realize that there are probably a dozen very valid answers to this question. Some will address the fact that rich people bring experiences (and future $$$) to the table that make them interesting to adcoms. Some might address that there is more than SAT to define who deserves to be accepted. Others might also point out that the “problem” start at the application level as many students are simply unaware of the possibilities, and when they are, not comfortable with a trip to an expensive or highly selective school.
For a reference, you might look at the Texas situation. Despite an auto admission at schools such UT or TAMU, many students who rank in the top 7-10 percent simply do not use their direct admission and prefer to stay closer to home, or attend a school that “fits” their lower SES.
And, it even extends to privates. Some students decide to attend Rice over HYPS because it is closer to home and they believe the school will be more nurturing. It is NOT always the school’s prerogative.
No idea, but heavy duty development and celebrity go a long ways…
I can tell you that in my area, there are families who start the college process in 8th grade, working on the SAT series and/or ACTs and working with a private college counselor so that those kids are way ahead of the curve. Those families are in the upper 2-3% in income nationally, in many cases, but they still do not donate or have the public profiles to make development/celebrity flags. But they put their wealth to work in other ways. Hard to compete with that.
Is that really true? Do you have some documentation for that? And what do you mean by “lower” SES?
As I stated before, any study with large numbers of students participating, had the same direct relationship. As far as absolute numbers, when you consider what tiny percent of the famiies in this country earn/have enough to attend a $60K+ school without financial aid, and what the percent is that are attending, you can see right there that the income is a huge determinant as to school choice. In absolute numbers there are far more students from families not in the top wealth categories, but they do not dominate in percentiles. Also, bear in mind that there are more students who do not even take the college boards in the lower income categories. My husband has a number of cousins who are barely making it, and there are high school dropouts in that group, and many who never bothered with taking SATs. IT’s a rare thing for anyone to go directly to a 4 year sleep away college.
As for the Texas situation, a problem is that getting full need met by UTAustin and A&M is difficult, so that a number of the low income kids who qualify for autoadmit to those schools due to their top 10% status, can’t afford to go away to college. Here in NY, we have the same issue when it comes to going away to school. Many of the SUNYs, if not all will give aid for full need up to tuition and fees, but not cover room, board and other expenses.
CPT- I live in an area similar to yours I believe, but I’ve observed that these families can take a kid destined for Hofstra or Adelphi and get them to Villlanova or Denison, but NOT to the elite circle at the top. Money can’t buy that (we’re not talking folks who are endowing a lab at Harvard… but people who can chuck 50-60K at a college counselor, endless test prep, sweet looking EC’s and summer experiences AND will be full pay wherever they go).
It is very hard to take a nice, non-academic HS kid and gear them up for Princeton. Very hard. It’s hard to take a B minus student who likes to shop with her friends, go to parties, and “hang out” and stuff her with the kind of test prep required to break 700. These are families who can write the checks… but it’s not happening. Add in an LD, or add in a disciplinary problem or two, maybe some substance issues- and Colby starts to feel like Amherst or Yale to these families.
I’m not convinced that taking your 8th grader who won’t read for pleasure and doesn’t like math and shoving them into test prep is going to work. I’ve seen improvements on the margins- but not the substantial increases you are talking about.
And celebrity? Cuts both ways. For every Kennedy, Cuomo, Pataki, Bush kid who ended up in the ivy league, I could point to dozens more political/celeb kids who end up at anonymous U. It is hard to punch above your weight for 18 years- more so surviving in college.
Look at the Bush twin daughters. One Ivy Leaguer and the other a proud Longhorn! Same parents – same education!
As I’ve said in another thread, I know of two kids this year who are in at the very top schools, who are B students with test scores that are well in the lower 25% of those schools. Celebrity/development and legacy, I believe. Some resentment as EA results are in. The top several kids with near perfect test scores, great activities, top of the class did not get into the HPY group. The only ones who did early had heavy duty obvious hooks.
However, I do agree with you, that a kid who might otherwise be going to a non selective school in those heavily tutored/coached situations more often get into schools that are not tippy top. They get into schools, the next rung down or so. Also the majority of such families aren’t going all fired intensive starting in 8th grade. Most American parents simply aren’t of the Tiger Mom ilk. So it’s more typical that the test preps starts late sophomore to junior year, and the amounts spent are not what the high end estimates one hears but still up there.
I backed out of test prep with my younger after paying more than I should have for my older ones. Just out of our league financially, but I would have gone that route if we had the money, and I would have hired private counselors too. Didn’t do it because we just didn’t make the affordability cut with our other priorities. But I know parents who did go that route, and yes, their kids did get a bump up Yes, it makes a difference. Though my kids also had a great advantage having an informed, involved, experienced parent involved (yeah, me), pushing them through home test prep and doing homework patrol was not as successful as it would have been, had I paid someone from the outside to do this. My youngest, especially, who is up there as it is, academically and test wise, could have maybe pierced the top school strata with that kind of push. I just didn’t have the oomph to do it, and neither did he on his own.
The lack of interest in service at Harvard and Yale that Ms. Guineir notes is clearly one of the most serious problems facing academia today.
But…
A highly sophisticated statistical analysis of @hunt’s prestigiousity rank and the service rank from the Washington Monthly reveals that there is a near perfect inverse correlation between prestigiousity and service.
This suggests that testocracy is just a symptom and that prestigiousity is the real problem.
If this is true, then the obvious solution to the problem of Harvard and Yale admitting too many rich kids (and thereby propagating the class system) is to just reduce the prestigiousity of these schools.
I have a feeling that this would be much more effective than eliminating standardized testing.