Paul Tough in the New York Times has a long article “Who Gets to Graduate” on the high college dropout rate of working class kids, focusing on some black girl from a mediocre Dallas area high school who gets into desirable U. of Texas at Austin, the state flagship school, despite being down around the 10th percentile among freshmen:
“Her senior-year G.P.A. was 3.50, placing her 39th out of 559 students in her graduating class. She got a 22 on the ACT, the equivalent of about a 1,030 on the SAT — not stellar, but above average.”
When I went to UCLA, most of my friends were dirt-poor Asian immigrants who all excelled academically and went on to flourishing careers in medicine and science. In general, poor oriental immigrants excel affluent white, black and latino kids. They get better grades, earn more money, enjoy more family stability and have higher credit scores. IQ is the single best predictor for success in life, far better than socio-economic status (see the work of Linda Gottfredson).
