RD,

My mother has a high school degree and my father only completed the 11th grade. I am white. I worked hard in school, got all of my test prep books at the PUBLIC LIBRARY, and was accepted (on my own merits and not on my race) into college.

Neither income nor family history is an excuse not to educate yourself.

And Bruce: even depressed urban schools have libraries with free test prep books.

Bruce,

You write "I’d like to see a score that reflects your gpa over the average gpa of those in your school as one possible factor in an application."

That's what the University of Texas already does. They automatically accept the top 10% of each public high school. So students in bad schools who perform well compared to their peers in terms of GPA are automatically admitted.