I have never, ever thought I was academically smart because I suck at math and I didn't do well on the SAT math section when I sat the exam in 1977. I did score 660 verbal. I was always embarrassed by not breaking a 1000 on the combined score, and decided on a 2 year associate paralegal training program because I was convinced I would not do well on college because, obviously, I wasn't smart. Nor did any of the guidance counselors tell me any differently back in the day. I wasn't college material, despite scoring in the 98th percentile on the old National Educational Development Tests in 10th grade (I even was one of 4 kids in our school who.got an award for that).

I discovered this weekend that in the context of the 1970s then-extant high school curricula at my school and the fact that SATs weren't re-centered back then,that I actually, damn it, was in the top 20% of kids taking that SAT that year. I could have actually done well in college.

I just shut that avenue down because I was convinced lack of math ability meant I wasn't intelligent.

I would like to go back in time and smack myself and our incompetent guidance counselors (who told me not to worry about SATs as I was "a pretty girl who would just get married & didn't need college anyway").