Comment by mgraczyk

Around 2 million people take the SAT every year.

A score of 710 on the reading portion gets you into the top 5%.

So there are ~100k students who scored 710 or higher on the reading portion of the SAT.

Those students are the ones I'm talking about. I claim that anyone who can score a 710 on the reading portion is above the level of capability that the author of this post is complaining about.

Some evidence for this claim, a score of 710 would put a student in the top 10% of a "regional public university", but the same student would be in the bottom 10% of Harvard or MIT students (probably would not get in with a 710). In other words, the author of this article is complaining about a capability level which is the overwhelming majority of his school, but ~0% of the students at the best schools.