She also implies that the SAT doesn't predict college performance but cites no evidence. Studies by ETS show that SAT scores alone are better predictors of college performance than high school grades alone. And a weighted average of the two predictors is better than either predictor alone. Without high school grades or the SAT, colleges would have no way of knowing whether an applicant was capable of doing college-level work. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds score lower on the SAT because the SAT primarily measures intelligence, and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are, on average, less intelligent.
Intelligence is primarily a genetically inherited trait.
Our nation is in part an intellectual meritocracy, where people with higher intelligence obtain better jobs, higher levels of education and higher socioeconomic status. Because intelligence is hereditary, the children of low socioeconomic status parents inherit their parents' lower intelligence. W hat a pitiful testament to the state of the youth poised to embark on an important stage of their life's development. I'm not saying college is the most important time of their life, but it is an experience that can define them, give them innumerable opportunities, prepare them, mold them, liberate them, disappoint them, sour them, change them or just bore them. It's up to them for the most part.