Right-- and the consequent weighting of enriching, interesting, and unusual extracurriculars that is currently going on vastly favors those at the highest levels of SES. Because those are the students who CAN do things like spend a summer interning (at their own expense) in the Galapagos, or similar things. As opposed to working at a dead-end fast food job over the summer because that's what you need/are able to do based on transportation, costs, and family obligations. Note that I'm not faulting those parents who CAN and DO give their kids such glorious opportunities for doing so. I'm faulting a system that weighs those things as a part of determining which students have the best merit.


This certainly means that the system as it currently stands isn't as meritocratic as it probably should be, which is why I'm a bit suspicious of conclusions based upon who winds up in highly selective colleges.

The kids least likely to wind up there are in the VERY lowest levels of the SES, but also those who are above the poverty line, but not by much. The reason is that for the one group, they simply can't imagine the ocean because they've never known anyone who has seen it, but in the second group, they know it's there, but they also know that $$ will never allow them to attend, and things like Questbridge also don't exist for those kids because their family incomes are just slightly too high.

It's a weird patchwork of factors that favors a low SES "sweet spot" for some lucky (very) high ability kids.

Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.