That's part of it, but as an Asian American immigrant myself, the stereotypes aren't really far off. "Tiger parents" is an American characterization of how Asian families are generally structured: parents (who have knowledge and life experience) dictate to kids (who lack both). Dating and relationships are discouraged (freeing up huge bandwidth for studying) while marriage is expected (heading off the tendency for extended adolescence). "Hard working" is a byproduct of being not that far removed from subsistence agriculture. "Finding yourself" is discouraged. "Carrying out your role" is encouraged.
These are cultural adaptations to an environment that's very different from America. My dad grew up in a Bangladeshi village, where people who didn't work literally didn't eat, and the vocational choices for 99% of people were "subsistence farmer." I don't think the words "fair" or "unfair" were ever uttered in my house. (And it drives me nuts when my American-born kids say that.) In America, these cultural traits become positively adaptive, because most of the competition isn't trying as hard. It boggles my mind how many Americans don't study for the SATs, but do have iPhones.
The SAT assumes a baseline vocabulary and familiarity with basic logic, which a lot of kids don't meet now that so many people take the test. My score went up by 120 points from my first practice test in 8th grade to the real thing in 11th grade, but some of that was just covering the ground on the expected high school math and vocabulary.
As someone who is (I think) on rayiner's side more or less, my impression of the evidence is that the SAT and similar tests (even IQ tests) can be practiced for to an extent, and scores can be improved, but only up to a "natural ceiling". So, while it should be possible for a while to improve everyone's scores on the SAT by providing test prep, you shouldn't expect everyone to be able to score near the upper limit on the SAT, just higher than they would be without test prep. Test prep has diminishing returns (unless that test prep is effectively cheating because the test questions and answers have been leaked) because the upper limit of a person's score is limited by their natural potential. The end state for the SAT, assuming the test isn't changed, is to produce a distribution more or less like a bell curve, but with a mean higher than before widespread test prep (and possibly some groups disproportionately improving compared to other groups, but not necessarily reaching the exact same mean as the other groups).
I'm not in favor of eliminating the SAT. I don't necessarily believe that SAT prep is materially impactful (I think it improves scores, but not, like, up a tier of selectivity). But all of the SAT improvement factors available to well-off families certainly do materially improve scores; those improvements include not just SAT prep, but also taking the test multiple times, having your results tracked by family and being forced to take the test multiple times, and disability accommodations, which are rampantly abused.
Low SES families are not taking the SAT on a level playing field with high SES families.
These are cultural adaptations to an environment that's very different from America. My dad grew up in a Bangladeshi village, where people who didn't work literally didn't eat, and the vocational choices for 99% of people were "subsistence farmer." I don't think the words "fair" or "unfair" were ever uttered in my house. (And it drives me nuts when my American-born kids say that.) In America, these cultural traits become positively adaptive, because most of the competition isn't trying as hard. It boggles my mind how many Americans don't study for the SATs, but do have iPhones.