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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

I grew up a low income student as well but why kind of bullshit were they feeding you? My athlete friends were well aware you needed a 950 for any kind of NCAA consideration. It didn’t matter how good your grades or athleticism if you couldn’t pass that hurdle you were relegated to juco.

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?

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It would be very interesting to hear your personal experience. But how can you make general statements about all poor schools?

He's responding to an anecdote - one that sounds absurd, by the way - so I would say that responding with an anecdote is fine, especially one that actually sounds realistic. Let's hear some anecdotes about being pushed hard in schools based in poor areas before dismissing it.

"sounds absurd, by the way".. that perhaps explains all the downvotes. One of the surprises about getting older is that stories from your youth sound more and more absurd with time. I didn't grow up with the Internet and the "MIT whiz kid" wasn't common in movies/shows until the mid 90's and ever after. What was a thing during my high school days were the relentless TV commercials for tech schools masquerading as advanced degree institutions. Who lies on HN about a personal story BTW ? What would be the point.

> that perhaps explains all the downvotes

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.

It was hearsay, they didn’t need to lie about it to still be untrue and absurd.

Someone's personal story is not hearsay; it's the opposite.

> they didn’t need to lie about it to still be untrue and absurd

What basis do you have for saying it's untrue?

> As an ancedote, I was told

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.

Repeating what someone told you that shaped your behavior in the past is anecdote. The information given was incorrect but your conclusion that this anecdote is hearsay is in error.

> The information given was incorrect

Why do you say that?

I was told by my low income peer group that you get 600 points just for filling out your name on the SAT and that 800 points could get you into a great school like MIT.

The minimum score for the SAT if you do nothing is 400, not 600.

Average SAT Score of admitted students: 1525

https://testive.com/mit-sat-scores-act-scores/

OK, but that doesn't mean they were told otherwise. That's part of the point of the story - they were negligently prepared.

I didn’t claim the anecdote was hearsay, I used the word “it” to refer to the hearsay, not the anecdote. The mistake is in the assumption of what it refers to, especially without asking me to clarify, or in not extending the principle of charity.

> one that sounds absurd, by the way

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?

> It sounds absurd to you, but isn't that your own ignorance?

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.

> 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.

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!

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