[glued]

I was on track to go to a prestigious university in high school when my fundamentalist christian parents kicked me out of the house at the age of 16. I ended up jumping around to live with different friends then eventually my grandparents. I had no money and thought I had no future. The stress was killing me, my grades and SAT score suffered. I ended up at a small state school in rural Georgia because of this. Today I work at one of the FANG companies but it was a long and challenging struggle to get here. A single test in high school shouldn’t define your long term success. It didn’t in my case but there are many folks who are living through difficulty at that age.

[jimbob45]

You can always retake the SAT. That or prove your worth by achieving a high GPA at a community college.

It sounds like maybe money would have been the limiting factor in your case but I don’t know.

[hackernewds]

Although I'm glad it worked out for you, this sounds like a very niche case that would fail every single measure of exampination. Neither is working at a FANG company a signal of intelligence.

[ZephyrBlu]

> Neither is working at a FANG company a signal of intelligence

You really believe that? I find it extremely hard to believe that the distribution of intelligence for engineering roles at a FAANG company is the same as that of the general population.

It seems far more likely that the distribution is shifted 10-15 points to the right.

[mywittyname]

I know anecdotes are not the singular of data, but I knew plenty of people whose young lives mirrored the OPs. My family had two couch-surfing classmates (at different times).

Neglectful parents are common.

[bradlys]

Neglectful parents don’t have to also kick one out of the house in order to be neglectful.

There are levels to this. I’m same as OP in terms of “looked like they could’ve gone to MIT” but was born in the wrong family. Ended up going to University of Washington after doing some community college - so it’s not like I went to the worst school in the world. But it was a long journey to get there and I do work at a target company now. Again, a very long journey… That could’ve been changed by just an interview or something else entirely.