Family Incomes are Valued More than SAT scores for Entry in Harvard, Yale, or Princeton

When it comes to financing preparation courses for standardized tests, the cost takes an upsurge and only wealthier families can afford it. Similarly, the case of an SAT exam which was previously considered to be a performance metric for assessing scholarly competence and native intellect of social and academic backgrounds has now become a ground for wealthy families. This means students from rich families whose per year earning is around $200,000 will affirmatively land among 1 in 5 scorings 1400 out of 1600. Whereas, the ones with a low family income of $20,000 will result in one student among 50 scoring similar range.

In places like Manhattan, SAT coaching charges around $1,000 per hour for one-on-one tutoring and this can only be availed by the rich and this has already made the tutoring industry a billion-dollar one. Quite in contrary, the College Board which administers the SAT exam stated that their exam assessed aptitude and that the scores were untouched by tutoring. But it has recently started partnering with Khan Academy to accelerate the online SAT practice but this also made students hailing from higher-income groups make better use of this and the score gap increased even more.

The former president of Harvard University and an American chemist, James Bryan Conant considered the IQ test to be a perfect test for measuring academic capabilities, and therefore, he opted for SAT. But to his surprise, the high-school grades were better tester of low-income group students than SAT scores High school grades are to some extent related to the family income but SAT scores determine that even more as the latter is coachable.

Story of Meritocracy Defining Prejudices

Conant wanted to escalate classless society but there has been no noticeable change in society since the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, the social mobility that has been spoken about here didn’t occur yet. It has been noticed that due to this disparity, hardly any children from a wealthy background have fallen to upper-middle-class strata or any child from a lower-middle-class group has risen up to the wealthy class. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have always eyed for the affluent classes and this has been prevalent since the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, the academic parameters have developed and so are the SAT scores. The prominent universities and colleges opted for a need-blind system and also arranged for financial aids. But even after these evident achievements, the elite has still been privileged. In fact, the present time’s affluent classes pass on their inheritance not by estates but through equipped academic excellence.

Higher education has still not offered a classless society and the class composition has somewhat resulted in:

• Majority of candidates studying in not only the topmost curated universities/colleges but the top 100, 70% hail from the highest quarter of income holder whereas just 10% from the low-income group;
• The Ivy League Colleges houses the top 1% of wealthiest people and Yale and Princeton houses only 1 person in 50 coming from a lower-middle-class family;
• If you’re someone hailing from an affluent family (top 1 percent), your chance of attending an Ivey League school increases by 77 times, then a lower-middle-class family (20 percent).

All these have resulted in the elite colleges offer even better financial aids that have resulted in Harvard and Stanford arrange free tuition, room, and board for candidates whose family income is lesser than $65,000. Still, there has been no noteworthy transformation since 2000 and there has in fact been a downward graph. There is no development in the count of first-generation learners in Harvard since 1960.

A study has shown how elite colleges do little to promote social mobility. Only 1.8% of Harvard and 1.3% of Princeton students climb the ladder from poor to affluent. In fact, public universities too, help in not a massive way.