Yeah exactly. Being able to score well on some standardized test is way easier than being able to keep up performance year round when you have problems at home if you have the aptitude to succeed at either.

GPA is also much more subject to getting penalized because a teacher straight up hates you for being poor, disabled, male (this one is measurable by having teachers grade tests with different names), ugly, smelly, other thing K-12 teachers tend to dock you for even though on paper they shouldn’t.

Many extracurriculars are also expensive and poor kids don’t get to do a lot of them or excel at them to the same degree.