[minighost]

I didn’t do well on my SATs back in the 90s. I’m not a good standardized test taker and I was working at a dialup internet provider while in high school, probably 30 hours a week. It left next to no time for studying for the SATs. As a result I got pretty bad scores because I was perpetually exhausted.

Still, I ended up getting a SWE job at Google in 2004 and working my way up to L8.

I think standardized tests are fundamentally bullish!t because they test more your ability to have time to prepare and study and think mechanically under artificial time constraints. None of which are associated with success in college. Some jobs, say a trauma surgeon, need to evaluate for the time constraint decision making, but a software engineer does not.

[nullc]

So you would have had an easier time getting admitted based on your participation in lacrosse, unpaid internships at non-profits, and so on?

[minighost]

No I ended up going to a university where CS was probably the smallest major on campus. But I worked my ass off to learn CS on my own. The tests wouldn’t have predicted the outcome I’ve been able to enjoy based on scores I received.

[beej71]

I think you're touching on something else important, which is that, left to their own devices, virtually no one learns new things by cramming for a test.

I'd wager that when you were studying your ass off, you had books open and were hacking away trying stuff out, figuring what works and what doesn't, yeah?

You're the person I'd want to admit to university or hire for my work, and it has jack-all to do with your test-taking ability.

[listenallyall]

> None of which are associated with success in college

How much of college is associated with success at software development? Especially if you're essentially full-time employed in the industry (at an ISP) during high school?