[floren]

I did well on the SAT and ACT, but one problem is that it's just not enough. Parents who shove their kids into piano and tennis lessons since age 4, push them to run for student government and take petitions to the city council, whatever, those parents are also going to make their kids spend every evening studying for the SAT. They've also had tutors when they need it. How does Harvard tell the difference between "this kid did well because she's brilliant" vs "this kid got $10k worth of SAT prep classes"?

[scarmig]

One interesting idea: the College Board could add in a class of problems requiring a particular novel, non-obvious approach that are effectively poison pills. Students who take the SAT prep courses are drilled on how to answer them, while students who take the test naively are bound to answer them incorrectly. It doesn't affect the actual score reported to the student. But when the score is reported to universities, a shadow score that represents likelihood that the student received extensive prep is also reported, which gives that kind of context.

[chris11]

Harvard could easily do that. They have financial info on the parents family.