The downvotes are the aggressive reactionary tide through HN, that rises and falls. Your personal observation suggests that some 'progressive' action might be valuable, that there's a systemic problem, and therefore it is shut down.
Don't stop telling it please. We need more voices from the real world here.
> they didn’t need to lie about it to still be untrue and absurd
What basis do you have for saying it's untrue?
That is hearsay.
> What basis do you have for saying it's untrue?
I was pointing out that it could be untrue without needing to be a lie. As to the “basis” for my saying it is untrue, I’ve been over that.
Why do you say that?
The minimum score for the SAT if you do nothing is 400, not 600.
Average SAT Score of admitted students: 1525
It sounds absurd to you, but isn't that your own ignorance? You weren't there; they were. I've heard many tell similar stories. Again, look in the NY Times from a few years ago; elite colleges not only accept it, but have tried to mitigate it.
> one that actually sounds realistic
Isn't this just saying that it agrees with what you already believe?
Or my experience.
Of course, perhaps schools in poor areas really are pushing the children hard to go to extraordinary heights and it’s just the fault of poor people for being so damned useless that they ignore it or fail.
Or, perhaps, there’s a middle ground to be found, but I doubt it includes people who no one would describe as bright being unaware of the scores they need to enter the next stage of education, if that’s what they desire.
That's not how I understood it - are we talking about the same comment. I understood the commenter to be saying that their school didn't give students the resources to understand and apply to top colleges, including basic understanding of colleges (e.g., who MIT is) and the admissions process. Are we talking about the same comment?
The comment that you paraphrase is, I agree, absurd!
If anything most of the high school counselors in predominantly poor and black schools just don’t push very hard. They would tell you MIT was too far of a reach. They would tell you the best you could hope for was a private local, community college, or public state university. Who would ever consider Devry and MIT as equivalent?