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SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

nytimes.com

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Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#121

Post by tlb »

changchuming wrote: post #81
tlb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past adversity is in the past. So if someone grew up in a poor environment but you're thinking of admitting them to a good college on full scholarship, they'll soon be progressing at the rate they're capable of without the adversity. So the best predictor of future success in a good environment probably does include a correction for past adversity.

1) Why do you think their circumstances will change once they're in University? 2) There is the assumption that the environment in which you grew up in does not permanently affect the way you learn, while many studies have proven this to be untrue. The most critical years shaping the way you learn is in the younger years. Once you're past that, there is no way you can "make up" for it just by going to a better colleg…

1) For most selective colleges, they'll be living in a different neighborhood or different city, in a college dorm instead of their house, with classmates instead of parents & siblings. So almost everything is different.

2) Sure. Environment has both short-term and long-term effects. So a fraction of the environmental effects wear off. I dunno what the fraction is, but when you do the regression to find the weighting of SAT test score and adversity score that best predicts college achievement, it should find the right balance.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#122

Post by dmix »

logicx24 wrote: post #76
SeanAppleby wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, what if it was true that wealthy people's exposure to better education over a lifetime, reduced stress distracting them from learning, better and more abundant roll models, etc, meant they would do better on pretty much literally any test you could put in front of them? Most research points to this being true.

Then wealthy people show more "merit" and the test is working as designed. If the test is an accurate predictor of success in college and success thereafter (which is a big if), then that people who do well on it are more deserving of college admissions. The ancillary qualities of that group of people (wealth, race, etc.) are irrelevant.

This is the reality of the situation that people don't want to admit. This is a social engineering problem related to the outcomes of college entrance processes. It's not really about the test or how we are measuring aptitude.

This problem would be far better solved elsewhere in the chain instead of blurring the meaning of data and pretending that things are different.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#124

Post by JshWright »

aqme28 wrote: post #111
Glyptodon wrote: post #18

This seems likely to end up being ugly. For example wealthy people could buy or rent addresses in "adverse" neighborhoods, or charter schools might locate offices there, in order to attempt to improve scores on this metric. At the same time this won't be able to identify many adverse life circumstances like abusive parents, cancer, etc. What it does do is outsource components of admissions decisions the colleges may…

That doesn't seem so terrible. More schools and property taxes in poor neighborhoods is an okay outcome as far as they go.

I think you're overestimating the taxes paid by a shell office (it's not uncommon for dozens/hundreds of organizations to use the same small office suite, staffed by a single receptionist).

Fancy private school in expensive neighborhood registers their official address in a poor neighborhood, and calls the school in the 'nice' neighborhood a "satellite campus".

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#125

Post by eitland »

changchuming wrote: post #73
logicx24 wrote: post #44

This, like every other similar attempt made to "equalize" the SAT, is misguided and will accomplish little. If the SAT correlates too strongly with wealth, then Collegeboard should make a better test. Make one that changes significantly every year so direct test-prep is hard. Choose different types of critical reading passages and questions each year, vary the style of the math questions - make the test different eno…

Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth. Perhaps the problem is that academic ability is directly correlated to the kind of test prep you receive, so unless you set a test paper full of trivia questions the student that has gone through test prep will perform better every time. I do not agree with this idea either, but on…

> Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth.

Good IQ tests exists that are hard to game. They are easy to learn easy to vary and easy to measure.

(I think I have heard someone here talking about IQ tests that include language and geography questions. This is not the kind of IQ tests I'm talking about. Perfect IQ tests should measure your processing speed, not your "software" - i.e. education.)

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#126

Post by starpilot »

pjscott wrote: post #79
logicx24 wrote: post #44

This, like every other similar attempt made to "equalize" the SAT, is misguided and will accomplish little. If the SAT correlates too strongly with wealth, then Collegeboard should make a better test. Make one that changes significantly every year so direct test-prep is hard. Choose different types of critical reading passages and questions each year, vary the style of the math questions - make the test different eno…

Imagine a perfect SAT that preparation can't affect; for the purposes of the hypothetical, the test just stares into your soul and measures pure scholastic aptitude. If (a) scholastic aptitude has a significant effect on your lifetime income, (b) people tend to marry people of similar social and economic class, and (c) scholastic aptitude is fairly heritable (through genes, environment, whatever)... ... then you woul…

Because we've done studies to address exactly that question. What we've found: The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents, hence the adversity score to rectify the inequity in life circumstances.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/money-academic-su...

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#127

Post by rc_kas »

EGreg wrote: post #64

College is now an artificial scarce resource and a signal to arbitrarily select well connected people (ivy league) or people who check a box (others)

This is off topic, but .. My cousin graduated from Harvard and he's like the least well paid and least connected person I know. Just a nerdy introvert kind of person.

Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships

#129

Post by brlewis »

scott_s wrote: post #99
xienze wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual orientation, yeah they might not be able to get that one. But here's the factors they're using: https://twitter.com/i/moments/1129009648214921216 I do believe with just a few pieces of the information they're taking into consideration (namely, neighborhood, if you have a single parent, and if you're ESL [not sure if they're talking about the child being ESL or the parents]) you could reliably determine if the…

> But I highly doubt you'll find a lot of poor white kids in West Virginia getting boosted scores via this scheme. That is exactly what I expect to happen - as well as poor kids who happen to belong to racial minorities. The College Board published the criteria they will use to calculate the score. Race is not one of the criteria. But you're saying that race will not only be used, but be the primary criteria. So, let…

Can you please link to the College Board's list of criteria? In the article I could only find two examples out of 15.
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