I see a lawsuit on the way. How can college admission related score be a 'secret'?
SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
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Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#232Equality 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.
Devil's advocate: do you think children who lack families that provide such advantages must necessarily "suffer" as a consequence of that lack? And conversely, why did you wait to object until this, in particular, became a consideration instead of before (when ethnicity and other factors were already considerations)?
I can’t speak for the original commenter, but lots of people did not wait to object to this.
What’s uniquely bad about this is that it doesn’t have even the facade of holistic analysis. The College Board is counting up how oppressed they think you are, and telling colleges to count your score less if you don’t have enough oppression points.
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#233The real problem is way more fundamental than this, imo the real problem is the concept of school as a discriminator of aptitude rather than an educator (or indeed as both). When you're teaching someone, teach them. Test them as late as possible, in a way as close as possible to the task you're testing them for (programming assignment completed in-house instead of weird whiteboards, piece of writing completed in house instead of screening English degree).
Hopefully micro-credentialling/MOOCs/the fact that a lot of good careers are slowly turning into software (which is one of the easiest things to objectively test) eventually kill this fake-meritocracy bullshit.
From the perspective above, this is lipstick on a pig.
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>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.
Isn't it both? There are only X spots per school. Every person being helped up and admitted is someone being pulled back and denied. I have no opinion on this debate, but school admissions are a zero-sum-game, afaik.
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it even secretly anymore? It just seems outright discrimination, at this point, as far as admissions is concerned.
This score is apparently a secret. > The score would not be reported to the student, only to college officials. They give you a standardized test, but you can't even find out how well you did.
You still get the score for how well you did.
You don't get your "adversity score" which is not based on how well you did, but only on where you live and what high school you attend.
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#236Equality 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?
The College Board offers Fee Waivers for disadvantaged test takers.
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#237Equality 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.
> I’m getting pushed further and further to the right.
Oh, do you think the right is going to improve upon the US's current system of incentivizing/forcing families to fight over/make big sacrifices for homes in the wealthiest school districts in order to give their children a half-decent shot at a good education? Or do you just want to be entitled to the good college in exchange for the childhood your parents chose to give/were coerced into giving you?
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#238Equality 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.
Devil's advocate: do you think children who lack families that provide such advantages must necessarily "suffer" as a consequence of that lack? And conversely, why did you wait to object until this, in particular, became a consideration instead of before (when ethnicity and other factors were already considerations)?
> Devil's advocate: do you think children who lack families that provide such advantages must necessarily "suffer" as a consequence of that lack?
As for me, of course not. I don't want other kids to suffer. And I'm sure it's the same for everyone else.
But why should I or my children who did the right things (study, sacrifice, etc) suffer because some faceless bureaucrats gets to decide who get an advantage via a 'secret' score?
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#239I think the goal of quantifying the amount of adversity a person experiences in their life is a fools errand. This is like asking "On a scale of 1-100 how beautiful is The Mona Lisa." Somethings can only be poorly approximated in numbers. Once we have a number it tends to become An Important Thing, regardless of how much the number reflects reality. It is ironic that SAT is making a new number that has little reflect…
I think this idea of quantifying adversity is worse than that. I'd say "on a scale of magenta to 100 how west is jello?"
Re: SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships
#240Equality 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.
> I’m getting pushed further and further to the right. Oh, do you think the right is going to improve upon the US's current system of incentivizing/forcing families to fight over/make big sacrifices for homes in the wealthiest school districts in order to give their children a half-decent shot at a good education? Or do you just want to be entitled to the good college in exchange for the childhood your parents chose…
> Oh, do you think the right is going to improve upon the US's current system of incentivizing/forcing families to fight over/make big sacrifices for homes in the wealthiest school districts in order to give their children a half-decent shot at a good education?
Yes? Ever heard of school vouchers? The political right would love to reform the education system, from teachers unions to university professors, the entrenched interests are core Democrat voting blocs.