[FT_intern]

The privilege to value education and to spend time studying, yes. Almost all resources can be found online nowadays. If you've ever been to an SAT tutoring class, you know that the only benefit the kids have is the benefit of being forced to take practice tests.

A top school is a good signal for how much time someone spent studying in high school, except for affirmative action students who get into top schools with much worse scores and GPA.

[unsignedinteger]

> Almost all resources can be found online nowadays.

While this is true it highlights a major misgiving in the attitude with regards to the reality of socioeconomic status. If your poor, yes you theoretically have the ability to utilize those resources, but what good are those resources if you don't have a conducive environment to engage in study?

Lower socioeconomic status is correlated with lower stages of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Self-actualization i.e reaching one's potential is more dependent on the satisfaction of basic and psychological needs, which are generally more accessible to those of privilege.

It's not just about resources being available, it's resources being available and making sure people have the opportunity to engage in those resources.

[ajamesm]

or, you know, legacy admissions. The way you wrote your post, you'd think the rich are inherently more virtuous and deserving

[throwaway_374]

> except for affirmative action students who get into top schools with much worse scores and GPA.

This dismissive "quota tokens" attitude really irks me. It's one thing getting in, it's a total different ballgame surviving and coming out the other end with a decent GPA. I've seen people of all socioeconomic backgrounds fail and some from remarkable poor backgrounds do exceptionally well.

[aianus]

Getting in is harder than surviving or even excelling. The median grade at Harvard is an A and the graduation rate is 97.5%.

[_w6l2]

> A top school is a good signal for how much time someone spent studying in high school, except for affirmative action students who get into top schools with much worse scores and GPA.

For the truly competitive schools, the affirmative action students still need very high scores and GPA, they just tend to be given a little more of a pass on the extracurricular activities and essays in the application. I'd argue that for the most part, students of any demographic have to do some pretty crazy things to get the attention of top schools. The probabilities of an affirmative action student being granted admittance are just much higher than for an equivalent non-affirmative action student, but that doesn't mean that affirmative action students can get away with having poorer grades and scores. I'd argue they just have to be less well-rounded.

[rhizome]

A top school is a good signal for how much time someone spent studying in high school

Assuming all high schools are the same.

[techman9]

And the classes the student took. And the environment a student grew up in. And how much support the student received. And any one of about a million other things.

There are virtually an infinite number of variables that contribute to university admission and it's extremely reductive to suggest that it's purely a function of the amount of time a student spent studying in high school.