I grew up in a very rural, working class community. There was a mill in town, and a factory two towns over, and all the kids in my high school were pretty much expected to either work for those two businesses or go into the military after school. That's what probably 80 out of the 100 kids in my graduating class did. We didn't have AP classes and Rowing Club and Mock United Nations and all that upper-middle-class qualitative stuff people jam into their college admissions. But we did have access to the SAT and I crammed for it and knocked it out of the park. If it wasn't for the SAT I probably would still be slummin it in that same town (minus the mill and factory which have long since closed) and would not be here on the west coast working in tech.

To be fair I think the whole Model UN, volunteer kind of thing is a way for mediocre students without athletic skills to juice their resumes. If you’ve got good SATs you’ll go to a good college. If you’re an athlete that opens tons of doors too.