Is Being Poor An Excuse For Not Performing Well On The Sat ?

<p>sorry to go off the topic but..

[quote]
The SAT is the furthest thing from an aptitude test. It doesn't test intelligence in any way.

[/quote]

TOTALY agree...i mean theres nothing so 'intelligent' about having a strong vocabulary knowledge(CR) or being able to write essays (Writing) ...maybe the math shows A LITTLE intelligence but that really cannot be compared ....
o and u cannot hear somebody say " Oh i scored better then u on SAT therefore i am smarter.."..just makes no sense</p>

<p>o and btw i think it more than possible that u study from only prep book and practice tests and still do good..depends on what exactly ur missing out on (CR, Writing, math_</p>

<p>this is pretty dumb.. you assume that if a students parents have money that they took classes, prep and bought the books... i did nothing of the sort! does that mean because i had no prep that colleges should go easy on me? no....</p>

<p>But on the subject of preparation, the college doesn't know how or when people took courses or whatever, all they know is who could AFFORD to prepare with expensive classes and such. Therefore, they may look at lower range score and say "John B. is wealthy enough to afford prep courses and tutors, and thus raise his score" and so penalize him more than a poor kid who obviously had the built-in disadvantage of not being able to afford the extra help.</p>

<p>jennifay, if you had a bad score, though, you'd be better able to raise it than a really poor kid. Talent like yours is fairly rare.</p>

<p>Kids from poor family can do quite well if the family and the people around embrace education. Just look at thousands of those REALLY poor kids in China studying hard for the college entrance exam. The sad truth is many of them would end up having the scores but not enough money to attend as the Chinese government/universities have yet come up with comprehensive FA program like this country does.</p>

<p>or that there are 10 times more college hopefuls than college spots available...</p>

<p>and i thought illiteracy was a prob among lower class chinese?</p>

<p>uh, not as much as you'd think and either way there are still more than enough people who can read than can fill college spots (easily three times as many people who can read in china than people in america total)</p>

<p>"By 1990 the number of illiterates among people above the age of 15 came down to 180 million, and the illiteracy rate dropped to 22.2 percent. In 1994 the number of China's total illiterates dropped to 150 million, and the illiteracy rate dropped to 17 percent" </p>

<p><a href="http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/phumanrights19/p-6.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/phumanrights19/p-6.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><em>asks sincerely</em> has it changed much since 1994?</p>

<p>then again, i found this on the us:</p>

<p>"The adult illiteracy rate in United States is 38.4%<br>
The male adult illiteracy rates is 26.1%
The female adult illiteracy rates is 50.0%"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.igesl.org/Read%20&%20Lead%20workshop%20resources/Literacy%20Statistics.doc%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.igesl.org/Read%20&%20Lead%20workshop%20resources/Literacy%20Statistics.doc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>which i find really hard to believe that one in two females are illiterate. maybe this startling statistics depend how you define illiterate. If they define it as females who can't read at a 9th grade level, then I could believe it. But oh well, the site didn't list their sources (red flag).</p>

<p>Yeah, that info is completely innacurate.</p>

<p>Talent like mine? what... no need to be sarcastic or anything..</p>

<p>I do think that poor people go through more problems than i do but i also suffer from some major problems that colleges cant possibly know about.. but this isnt taken into consideration either. I feel that the most qualified person with the most potential should be accepted. Often times that is the middle class child, but thats life huh?</p>

<p>no sarcasm intended. Some kids are smart but they need some exposure to the test's format first to get the hang of it. To do well on the SAT w/o much prep is truly a talent for taking standardized tests.</p>

<p>I heard that colleges will not be pleased with a kid who gets a 1200 on the SAT who is from a private school as to a kid who goes to a public one.</p>

<p>Well it's more of a good school versus bad school thing. If the private school is worse academically than the public school, the reverse is true, but you have to right idea.</p>

<p>race has a much larger influence in regards to your appeal to college. princeton did a study that found the following average increases/decreases of SAT when it came to applicants consideration.</p>

<pre><code>* Blacks: +230
* Hispanics: +185
* Asians: -50
* Recruited athletes: +200
* Legacies (children of alumni): +160
</code></pre>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action&lt;/a>
(look at the PDF study review)</p>

<p>sivart, would that mean ordinary white people are "0" in the study?</p>