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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

#381

Post by _dps »

thex10 wrote: post #249
adbge wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 entrenc…

Interesting point -- I've heard of vouchers, though admittedly have no experience with them. But does it scale?

We already have school choice for universities. You go where you want and you either pay for it or find funding from the government/charities. No one finds it weird that you're not tied to your local neighborhood for higher education.

We already have something that's not too far from school vouchers for universities, which is FAFSA. The government provides aid that you can use at any accredited institution, not just the institution into which you were geographically zoned.

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

#382

Post by darawk »

batbomb wrote: post #376
darawk wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and his point is why should his dad make that sacrifice for his kids if the SAT board is just going to subvert his efforts?

What would it subvert? You go to a better school, you get a better education, you are more educated and you get a 34 on the ACT. If you go to a crappy school and you get the same score than there's no qualitative difference between the schools and your parents skipped vacations for nothing. But obviously the OP must believe there was value in the better school otherwise they wouldn't mention it. So they would believe…

I'm not sure what your point is. Nobody mentioned Harvard. This de-values the efforts of parents to improve their kids education. If you devalue something, you get less of it. Simple as that.

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

#383

Post by chungleong »

leetcrew wrote: post #91
ZebZ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a poor kid goes to a shitty school and has life impediments that limit the amount of studying and preparation they do and still scores a 1300, is that kid any less capable than a rich kid who goes to a private school and has all the opportunity in the world and gets 1500?

the original word choice was "prepared", which has a different meaning from "capable". if the poor kid never took calculus in high school and the rich kid already understands integration, that's probably two whole college semesters behind on a STEM track. there's no way you could say they're at the same level of preparedness for college. as for "capable", who knows?

Well, someone has to prop up the humanities. Universities are supposed to be communities of scholars. They aren't job training centers. Unless some students are persuaded to pursue less-career-oriented majors, all our universities would soon into polytechnics.

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

#384

Post by natalyarostova »

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.

Welcome to the dark side.

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

#386

Post by _hardwaregeek »

Kinda feels like admissions departments are not doing their job/the College Board is attempting to do their job for them. Why should I trust a metric from the College Board? Anybody who has taken an AP test can tell you the courses are in no shape or form close to college level. And the SAT is an exercise in anal perfectionism, not intelligence. I don't trust them to accurately judge the socioeconomic background of a cow, let alone a student. And anyways, isn't it the job of the admissions department to judge a candidate by more than their scores? Isn't that the point of "holistic" admissions?

Also, is it just me, or are SAT scores wildly overvalued? Maybe it's just my high school, but SAT scores were never emphasized, versus the ridiculous race for grades, extracurriculars and good essays. The days of a "good" SAT score getting you into a college are over. I can generally tell how old someone is just from how much they emphasize SAT scores.

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

#387

Post by solveit »

throwawayjava wrote: post #300
harryh wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research contradicts your anecdote. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201903...

Nearly all of those studies focus on short-term and test-specific interventions; i.e., "coaching", not "tutoring". I worked with students throughout the school year with a focus on the underlying content, and only switched to "coaching" the last few weeks before the exam. For many students, I tutored them weekly or biweekly, for 1-3 hours per week, for multiple years ! NONE of the studies on the effect of coaching co…

> For many students, I tutored them weekly or biweekly, for 1-3 hours per week, for multiple years!

This... is a feature, not a bug. The SAT is a tool to measure educational attainment, and you boosted scores by legitimately educating students. The SAT is not a test to measure natural ability (I can't believe this needs to be said, but so many people claim that no intervention should be able to boost SAT scores, and the only logical conclusion is that they want the SAT to measure some sort of unchangeable inborn ability? Of course, I think the actual problem is that they haven't realized that if you eliminate all environmental differences, all you're left with is the genetic lottery.)

But anyway, I think this is absolutely fine. Would you expect someone who hasn't gone to high school to do well on the SATs? Then why in the world would you think legitimate education shouldn't boost SAT scores?

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

#388

Post by quickthrower2 »

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.

The article says:

> The rating will not affect students’ test scores, and will be reported only to college admissions officials as part of a larger package of data on each test taker.

So there is no discrimination, unless this is used in a feedback loop, which maybe it is.

> "My family sacrificing vacations and eating out for 12 years"

So your family has hardship, but managed to skew things so you can have it better. If this analysis means more is done to help kids from poor backgrounds, you'd be doubly helped, one by your parents hard work, and again by the system.

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

#389

Post by jtr1 »

The underlying assumption in all of this is that quality education should remain scarce, in which case it must be doled out based on broadly applicable metrics that end up being arbitrary in practice.

If education and opportunity were abundant, maybe we wouldn't be at each other's throats and/or concocting elaborate ways to game the system.

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

#390

Post by Chazprime »

ceph_ wrote: post #370
manfredo wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that the definition of "white supremacy" has been expanded to include things like opposition to affirmative action, or support for enforcement of existing border control regulations (let along their expansion). Of course calls to censor those things are going to garner much more opposition than censoring explicit terrorist organizations.

The definition of white supremacy isn't expanding, but those are two topics white supremacists vocally support.

Stephen Fry might disagree with you there.
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