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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

#31

Post by xienze »

CryoLogic wrote: post #7

Soon we will have SAT advisers suggesting how to game the "adversity score" as well. - Get a summer job "because your family needed money" - Move out of your parents house for a summer "bad living conditions" - Adopt some non-binary gender temporarily "bullied for identifying as x" - CEO dad drops salary to $20k for a year and instead gets stock vesting equivalent "poor family" etc. etc.

None of that’s going to make any difference. Let’s be real here, it’s going to be based on race alone (and perhaps being gay or trans). White or Asian? You don’t suffer any adversity. Black or Hispanic? Congratulations, your score just improved by 200 points.

This just sounds like the SAT board doing what school admissions boards already do: decreasing or increasing scores based on race.

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-rac...

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

#33

Post by jedberg »

ben_jones wrote: post #29
jedberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEO dad drops salary to $20k for a year and instead gets stock vesting equivalent "poor family" Colleges are pretty wise to this trick. You aren't the first to think of it. Relatedly is legally emancipating a child so they have "no parental support" and get a bunch of grants. That doesn't work either. I suspect the colleges would get good as sussing out all those other tricks too.

Just like they were able to suss out all the student athletes who didn't actually do anything?

There will of course be false negatives.

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

#35

Post by graeme »

ben_jones wrote: post #29
jedberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEO dad drops salary to $20k for a year and instead gets stock vesting equivalent "poor family" Colleges are pretty wise to this trick. You aren't the first to think of it. Relatedly is legally emancipating a child so they have "no parental support" and get a bunch of grants. That doesn't work either. I suspect the colleges would get good as sussing out all those other tricks too.

Just like they were able to suss out all the student athletes who didn't actually do anything?

That was bribery. The scheme was to bribe people who normally would do the sussing out.

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

#36

Post by jandrese »

stale2002 wrote: post #12

So I think that it is OK to be taking these factors into account at the college admissions level, but I am not sure if the "neutral test administration organization" is the correct place for this to be at. This is a very thorny issue, and I am uncomfortable with a centralized organization influencing it to such a large degree. Whether, and how much, to take into account these factors should be a local decision made b…

The problem with doing it at the admission level is you have to adjust ALL admissions processes. Doing it at the SAT level avoids the problem where disadvantaged kids are cut off by hard score limits right at the start of the process.

It could also be used to signal to schools which kids are likely to need some remedial classes in the first year despite what they scored on the SAT. Of course one can imagine a scenario where the admissions looks at the adversity score to weed out kids who they don't think are going to be prepared regardless of how smart they are.

This whole process assumes that the universities are interested in reforming the kids that the school system failed in the first place.

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

#37

Post by crazygringo »

> It would be calculated using 15 factors, like the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s home neighborhood. The score would not be reported to the student, only to college officials.

This sounds like affirmative action only at a much more granular and non-racial level.

Even better if it can take into account a student's whole academic history (e.g. if a student used to go to a fancy prep school and then moved to a local public school the year they took the SAT, or vice-versa).

Given the incredible disparities between schools/neighborhoods, they feels like it can only give a more accurate picture of a student's abilities relative to their situation.

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

#38

Post by didgeoridoo »

This new metric seems to be mostly based on ZIP and school-level data, not individual circumstances, so it may not be trivially gameable (short of moving your family to an impoverished neighborhood, which seems... unlikely).

That said, colleges already have access to this information through publicly-available high school rankings and ZIP-level demographic data. All this new metric does is add opacity and plausible deniability, shifting responsibility from college admissions departments to a centralized (and, most importantly, private) authority.

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

#39

Post by bluthru »

>Higher scores have been found to correlate with students coming from a higher-income families and having better-educated parents.

Which makes a lot of sense since income correlates with intelligence and intelligence is partially heritable.

A century ago the SAT was used to fine diamonds in the rough for first-generation college students. After multiple generations of college students mating with college students, you're not going to find that many first-generation college students anymore.

Inserting dumber students into college because of their upbringing is hostile towards the success of a nation.

EDIT: Please point out something that's incorrect instead of downvoting because it makes you uncomfortable.

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

#40

Post by AimForTheBushes »

markwaldron wrote: post #9
calvinmorrison wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

studying is gaming the system?

Being able to afford $100+ an hour for a pro to teach you exactly what you need to know to do well on the SAT is gaming the system

So studying?
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