<p>I think the SATs reflect income and upbringing more so.</p>
<p>An interesting example can be seen in the SAT scores of my friends and I. We’re all Asian (Chinese to be exact), all college-bound, taking the same AP & honors courses in the same magnet school, and all driven. The only main difference between us is where we live, family income, and upbringing.</p>
<p>My parents both have high degrees–dad has a Ph.D., mom as an MBA–and I grew up in a predominantly white-yuppie, middle to upper-middle class neighborhood. The neighborhood was a lot older, so most of the families around here were at least 3rd generation Americans. Pre-school through middle school I attended schools in my neighborhood; again, pre-dominantly white. They weren’t strong schools, but the people there were fairly wealthy.</p>
<p>My friends however, are from lower income families living in a very Asian-black-immigrant part of the city that was built within the past few decades and almost none of their parents went to college. They attended immigrant-minority dominated elementary & middle school.</p>
<p>To prepare for the SATs (& college admissions in general), my parents hired a college counselor, sent me to whatever SAT prep classes I asked for, and bought me as many SAT prep books as I wanted off Amazon.</p>
<p>My friends, on the other hand, had to borrow SAT prep books from the library, joined free programs that our school offered, etc. </p>
<p>Guess who got the higher SAT score? Me.</p>
<p>I’m definitely not as smart as my friends, nor as hard working. Heck, most of them have got 4.0 GPAs whereas I have a 3.8. I’m the one usually asking them for homework help.</p>
<p>It was, unsurprisingly, their critical reading & writing scores that varied the greatest from mine. The reasons are obvious. </p>
<p>The students (and themselves) at the schools they attended were usually 1st generation Americans; their parents couldn’t speak proper English. And thus, they weren’t as exposed to it as I was. My parents don’t speak proper English either, but the students at my school had parents that did, and so I learned proper English from them.</p>
<p>There are a lot more reasons, but I’ll leave that to you. I’m really tired now.</p>