disadvantage

I’ve been working with an undergraduate, a senior. She is African American, from a poor family. None of her elders went to college, although a few cousins are doing it. She graduated at the top of her class in an inner-city high school, where she says she never had to do any work to make As. Her writing is markedly deficient compared to the predominantly-affluent predominantly-privileged students here, and she struggles academically.