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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

#211

Post by enraged_camel »

remote_phone wrote: post #170
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…

I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while living in our house. If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible. I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahe…

>>I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahead.

Just to offer some general commentary, I think this mentality is probably the root of most of our social ills: people see everything as a "race" and they work hard to "get ahead", and they therefore get angry at policies that attempt to even the playing field because it might help others "catch up".

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

#212

Post by danmaz74 »

learc83 wrote: post #203
cljs-js-eval wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The adversity score, as far as I can see, gives high scores to students who succeed in worse school districts. While none of the sites reporting on this bothered to link to any kind of official announcement, it looks like this may be a refinement of the tool announced here in 2016: https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/pr... From the college board's description of the tool, it weights applicant sc…

>The OP had the same opportunity, but because they did the traditional things for a poorer family to encourage their students to succeed (moving to a good school district and sacrificing on the commute) they will be considered a privileged student in this analysis. Compared to the poor students whose parents didn't make those sacrifices, they are privileged.

In general, if you make a sacrifice to earn something, that something isn't a privilege.

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

#213

Post by deogeo »

LanceH wrote: post #173
gugagore wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be missing the point, but from a quick glance at the article, it's about geographic location, and not race. Is there some second-order effect?

In the zero sum game of admissions, boosting someone else for their poor location/school impacts those who sacrificed to get score better without the boost. A poor asian community that sends their kids to after school schools and does very well as a whole will suddenly fight themselves without the boost that others at that economic level might have. All theoretical at this point I guess. I would prefer to let this pl…

> A poor asian community that sends their kids to after school schools and does very well as a whole will suddenly fight themselves without the boost that others at that economic level might have.

They'll also be punished for having established a low-crime neighborhood and learning english, since crime level and english as second language are also factors in the adversity score.

Of course, no single one of them is entirely responsible for their parents and community teaching them english, or for the low amount of crime. Because those are results of collective instead of individual effort, they're not labeled as laudable accomplishments, but as shameful privileges.

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

#215

Post by GhostVII »

I think instead of trying to lower the bar for low income students, we should work on solving the actual problems causing them to perform more poorly on the SAT (or adjust the SAT so it is more representative of their actual skills). If students are accepted with a lower SAT score because of their background, they are likely going to struggle in University, since they have lower scores than the rest of their class, seems like this would be just pushing the problem further down the road, rather than actually addressing it. From what I have seen, the problems for low income students start in grade school, if you are behind academically before you even enter high school, it's going to be hard to catch up.

On the other hand though it might be essentially impossible to close the gap between low income and high income students. Your parents have a huge impact on your learning, and if your parents are poor and have to work all of the time, they aren't going to be as available to help you learn.

Regardless, I think it is pretty impossible to calculate an adversity score that is actually accurate (how do you compare the challenges faced by a child in a single parent family with one who grew up in a poor neighbourhood?), and it seems pretty wrong to me to have a hidden score based on things you likely can't control influece admissions, but it would lead to some interesting research if it was actually used.

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

#217

Post by shawndrost »

rhegart wrote: post #131

Equality of opportunity over outcome for me. Now Asians will be discriminated against secretly. My family sacrificing vacations and eating out for 12 years (literally ate out 5x max) to afford to live in a good school district shouldn’t penalize us. My dad commuted 4 hours daily instead of moving...I’m getting pushed further and further to the right.

Ok, here's a question for you. You like equality of opportunity. Presumably you agree that the SAT (as-is) does not provide that, in light of (eg) people that can't afford to retake the test and get a higher score. So, here's the question: would you support an "accurate" adversity score? One that, say, was assigned by an all-knowing oracle?

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

#218

Post by tenpies »

avn2109 wrote: post #164
gugagore wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be missing the point, but from a quick glance at the article, it's about geographic location, and not race. Is there some second-order effect?

Race and geography covary more strongly than ~all other pairs of parameters, such that the one is a reliable proxy for the other.

Exactly, Facebook and a few others got in trouble because advertisers could set geographic criteria which translated quite neatly to race demographics.

The fact is that different ethnic groups don't seem to mix organically unless they are all quite wealthy, at which point they have more in common with their socioeconomic class than with their ethnicity.

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

#219

Post by brankoB »

enraged_camel wrote: post #211
remote_phone wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while living in our house. If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible. I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahe…

>>I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahead. Just to offer some general commentary, I think this mentality is probably the root of most of our social ills: people see everything as a "race" and they work hard to "get ahead", and they therefore get angry at policies that attempt to even the playing field because it might help others "catch up".

It's not an anger at helping others catch up, but an anger at pulling people back. We can help people who are behind without sacrificing the people who are already ahead.

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

#220

Post by droithomme »

starpilot wrote: post #126
pjscott wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> 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.

Looking at graduation rates instead of admission rates is problematic. Less gifted and underprivileged people also graduate at lower rates despite being admitted using affirmative action procedures as the College Board is now implementing. This means they do not have a degree that would advantage them, but are saddled with undischargable education debt that puts them at a severe disadvantage for the rest of their life. The system not only continues the inequality but makes it much worse. If college was free or education debt was dischargable in bankruptcy then it would not be the oppressive system it is currently where people unable to succeed are admitted, then forced to pay back debt they can not afford after they fail to graduate. Only a sadist and a racist would support such an inequitable abusive system.

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