success

What you know determines where you go, according to a new book that sets out to determine why the smartest low-income students forgo the most selective colleges.

It’s not that poor kids aren’t as smart as rich ones, researcher Alexandra Walton Radford finds. Nor do top schools turn them down. In fact, she reports, low-income prospects have a big advantage in the admissions process at the most selective colleges.

The problem is that few of them apply, thanks to high school counselors and peers who know little about the admissions process, and parents who often know even less.

Fewer than half of those students who took the SATs in the class of 2013 are prepared for college-level work, a new report shows.

The College Board, which manages the college entrance exam, says only 43 percent of those who took the test received a total score of 1550 or higher out of 2400.