[gmadsen]

while I agree, that very smart children can be victims of their childhoods, not everyone can prep their way into MIT. that is why Harvard and Yale are more prestigious, its more associated with the powerful, not purely the most academically inclined.

To be clear I grew up fairly poor myself with no support system, but not that bad with violence, just trailer park poor, you can tell smart children at a very young age, kindergarten it will be obvious if a student is mathematically gifted(for whatever that is worth, it is certainly not the end all be all indicator of future success).

my point is that MIT will have a higher percentage of mathematically gifted students, because it isn't something that can be prepped for.

I guess I would be curious on how much a difference it really is , if you could completely control for environment, but even then the difference still exists.

[ctvo]

> my point is that MIT will have a higher percentage of mathematically gifted students, because it isn't something that can be prepped for.

What are you talking about? The requirements to get into MIT are not mathematical genius. It's above average quantitative skills. And you can prep for the standardize math requirements quite easily. All of my high school friends did, and some managed to get into MIT.

[gmadsen]

you obviously have a pretty strong bias. I didn't say its a requirement, I said they would have a higher percentage of gifted students.

Also the requirements are not "above average", a math SAT of 750 is in the 95% percentile of SAT takers, which is already below average for MIT. Even then, the "average" student isn't even taking a college readiness test. You are grossly overestimating what average is.

[ctvo]

Can you clarify how this can't be prepped for, and is a marker of intelligence instead of also being explained by average intelligence, coupled with means ($$) and drive?

I attended a top school. I can assure you my classmates weren't on the whole more intelligent. They did have more drive, better study habits, more external forces (parents) pushing them. Some were extraordinary, but not the average. I would have trouble saying as a body they were more intelligent than say those that went to large state schools.

[hackinthebochs]

Here[1] is a good overview of studies on test prepping and their relatively underwhelming influence on scores:

>Once scholars control for all these factors as best they can, they find that coaching has a positive but small effect: Perhaps 10 or 20 points in total on the SAT, mostly on the math section, according to careful work by Derek Briggs of the University of Colorado Boulder and Ben Domingue of Stanford University.

[1] https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/sat-prep-courses-do-the...

[gmadsen]

I really don't think I am making that claim. As far as I've read SAT scores before the age of 10 are a good marker of intelligence. Of course you can prep a large extent to get into a good school as a high school student.

I attended a small state school for undergrad, and a top school for grad school. There were no extraordinary students at the small state school. I was top of the class. When I went to grad school I was quickly humbled as very much average in that selected group. Everyone studied/research all day long in grad school, it wasn't really a matter of who was more driven, everyone was driven.

All my point is and has been, is that extraordinary people self select to go to good schools. That brings up the average overall compared to low rank state schools.