Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 959 posts

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

#601

Post by josh5555 »

bigendian1234 wrote: post #448
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.

> I’m getting pushed further and further to the right. Cycles of poverty will never end when people with the privilege of dedicated and capable parents facilitate their success feel like victims. How about some alternate suggestions for poor kids without parents like yours?

The cycle of poverty will never be eliminated because it is human nature. Some people make wise choices and others make poor choices. It is evolution. No matter how many "adversity points" and other nonsense people come up with to make the system "fair", the family where the father is willing to break his back for his kids will win almost every time.

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

#602

Post by lenkite »

learc83 wrote: post #591
lenkite wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we will have to disagree. When you are penalizing such efforts, you are most certainly denigrating them.

Harvard has need based scholarships. These need based scholarships directly reduce the amount of children of wealthy parents who get into Harvard. Are need based scholarships denigrating the hard work of wealthy parents?

Are you truly comparing the scholarship need-based policies of one wealthy, private college to a fundamental change in the Scholastic Assessment Test used nation wide ? You have a choice to apply to Harvard - there is very little choice apart from SAT/ACT for higher education in the states.

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

#603

Post by pishpash »

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…

So is it okay then to have poorly educated people in college? This incentivizes everyone moving to a negatively rated district and getting a worse education, because it wouldn't matter, according to the logic.

That's assuming they calculated their adjustments precisely. And if they didn't, then welcome to all sorts of artificial biases in the system where a few more people appointed themselves to determine the fates of many. Congrats on solving nothing at all.

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

#604

Post by codernyc16 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #516
whatshisface wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your autistic savant musician example, they are probably practicing obsessively every second they can manage, and may actually have earned their success. Does their hard work not count because their biology "made them do it?" I guess that's a question that cuts right to the heart of free will and applies to all of us in the end.

what if they aren't practicing every second? what if it simply comes out 100% effortlessly? how do you define "earn"? only X hours of obsessive practice? does their skill not count because they didn't put in years of 'hard work'?

> what if it simply comes out 100% effortlessly? What magical world do you live in? Have you ever acquired any skill in your life?

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

#605

Post by intended »

grawprog wrote: post #408
mgkimsal wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because of my own intelligence and skill... Fuck anyone giving me points for things i didn't work for or that are outside my control... Your "intelligence" is definitely one of those things completely outside your control. What you've done with it is at least partially under your control, but you probably weren't born with any sort of brain disorder, for example. EDIT: adding on things like your visual appearance -…

How? I chose to learn the things i learned outside of school and to an extent the things i chose to learn in both high school and university. I didn't have to learn those things. I could have spent my time watching tv or doing other things. I know the things i know because i spent time and effort learning them.

And how would such a test not work out well for you?

You would still score well, and the fact that you have extra work will still hold in good stead.

Let me turn this question that puts your self interest first.

You’ve got two people who you can hire for your team.

I turns out one guy got a lower sat score than the other.

The lower scorer is someone from the projects where people don’t go to college. He still managed it, and crunched his way through everything to get to community college.

The other chap has good parents who are highly educated and comes from a stable household.

Without a doubt, the first individual has proven a tenacity required to overcome a world of adversity.

Frankly - this is a handicap we already give people if we are made aware of their context.

The same reason people respect first responders, or people who’ve made it out of poverty are respected.

Because it IS harder, and far more fail to get out in the current environment, than those who do.

This will end up being more of a “how effective were you with the opportunities you had.” Measure than any other - and that’s provided it takes off in the first place.

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

#606

Post by ousta »

americans are funny. proning positive discrimination to get into a school and sacrify 5 years while not being prepared intellectually to succeed in the degree you got positively discriminated into and they call that a chance. as long as the guys proning that will have positively discriminated surgeon and cancerologist to cure them Im ok with it.

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

#607

Post by jessaustin »

lr4444lr wrote: post #254
educationdata wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I have to say about this SAT thing is that, there are lots lots of Asians working in SAT as statisticians, psychometricians, and analysts. There must be lots of Asians working on the project related to the 'Adversity Score', unless they intentionally exclude Asians from this project. But we've never heard anything about internal disagreement or resistant against this stuff. This fact tells something.

That Asians respect the NDAs they signed?

Enough with the stereotypes!

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

#608

Post by ousta »

aj7 wrote: post #590
thosakwe wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now Asians will be discriminated against secretly. So, a separate number being added to College Board's overall package is secret discrimination against Asian students? The "adversity score," according to the article, is calculated based on 15 different factors. The two listed (relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate/poverty level of the student’s home neighborhood) are not directly tied to…

No. I’m an MIT SB and Berkeley PhD and I will tell you engineers never made a living in the US until around 2000 (fiberoptics and Netscape boom). The “right” will snatch that right back.

r u serious? before IT, engineering in us meant making cars, space shutles, airplanes and i garantee you that those were well earning jobs.

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

#609

Post by UnpossibleJim »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #479
john_moscow wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you are about to undergo a major surgery. Would you rather get operated by a surgeon that graduated from the medical school with A+, or by someone with a B who got the job instead because they came from a poorer neighborhood?

Do you ask to see a surgeon's SAT scores, and their college scores before every operation?

I would bet money the MCATs won't start some ideological BS like this.
Post reply on HN