Originally Posted by Val
Originally Posted by Bostonian
SAT scores of children, like IQ, are positively correlated to parental income. If you take two children, one from a family with income of $50K and another from a family with income of $200K, maybe there is only a 55-60% chance that the child from the richer family has a higher SAT score. But if you randomly select 1000 children each from families across the country with incomes of $45K-$55K and $180K-$220K, the average SAT score and IQ of the children from the richer families will almost always be higher. Since colleges enroll thousands of students, one should expect that higher-SAT schools have students from richer families.

The story debunks the myth that wealthy people are brighter as an effect of wealth and test prep (as if the college admission scandal wasn't enough):

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At Trinity, Pérez’s predecessors had been able to capitalize on a pattern that admissions officers say they often see: At expensive prep schools, even students close to the bottom of the class usually have above-average SAT scores, mostly because they have access to high-octane test-prep classes and tutors.

“O.K., you’re not motivated, you’re doing the minimum at your high school,” Pérez explained, describing the students Trinity used to admit in droves. “You have not worked as hard as your peers. But you did the test prep, and you learned how to play the SAT game.”

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But if the rich student you’re admitting has a higher SAT score than the poor student you’re rejecting, you can tell yourself that your decision was based on “college readiness” rather than ability to pay.

The problem is, rich kids who aren’t motivated to work hard and get good grades in high school often aren’t college-ready, however inflated their SAT scores may be.

This and too many similar articles conflate wealth with earned income.

Actual multi-generational wealth confers genuine advantages and privileges that folks who only have a high earned income can only dream of.

Personally, I have had it up to my back teeth with hearing the income==wealth fallacy.

Plus college costs and taxes ensure that the 'only high income' people (the middle class) stay in their place.

The gullibility of most, even on this board itself, not to see through this shell game actually astounds me.


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