[a1pulley]

The alternative is gating on soft skills and job experience. Do you really think it's easier for privileged kids to game our industry's admissions tests?

A poor kid would have a much harder time developing soft skills and getting job experience than a rich kid would have passing our admissions tests, which would be worse for social mobility than the status quo. A poor kid with a blue collar dad can't get an internship at his dad's friend's startup. A poor kid didn't go to a high school with a computer science club. A poor kid didn't grow up developing soft skills at a dozen different after school activities.

However, the poor kid can go to college on a Pell Grant (like me), study hard, and at least have a chance to meet the Leetcode bar and gain entry to the middle class.

[eyphka]

Chiming in to agree here. Standardized tests + leetcode tests gave me the ability to overcome being a ward of the state and become a software engineer/ then founder of a YC company with zero connections.

Quick aside, in addition to the Pell Grant, there's also for former foster youth the CHAFEE grant (California specific).

[somrand0]

truly privileged "kids" ain't going around looking for jobs thorough interviews, they show up as "investors" or are otherwise brought in by their 'connections'...

[msla]

Granted, but we're talking about upper-middle-class versus poor. Upper-middle-class means you speak the prestige dialect, you know what "business casual" means and you already have the proper outfit, and you have access to the relevant technology at home, not to mention free time to use it.