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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

#621

Post by awakeasleep »

kaitai wrote: post #477
zasz wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Asian whose parents also sacrificed a lot, I'm sympathetic, but I would urge you to consider a couple things: 1. Like it or not, plenty of families in America have had it worse than you had, and would not find it at all impressive that you have never gone on a vacation or eaten out. 2. You should save your anger for the huge number of spots saved for legacies and athletes. Being the child of alumni means…

Lots of great points to consider here and I'll boost number (2). I'm struggling not to say something unforgivably cynical here.... .... ...so let's say this: getting the 4.8% of Americans who are of Asian descent to spend their time crapping on the 12.7% of Americans who are black, or even better spend extra time crapping on the 6% of college students who are black and at 'good' universities, is just wonderful for le…

Your use of white is sort of shitty here- While it may reflect the truth of the demographics, whiteness is not the salient point when we're talking about legacies and 'athletes'.

The point there is the power of wealth and social connections. Thats what is unjust. Dragging race into it sort of undermines the point, and it certainly hurts the universality of the point, as other countries have different dominant class identifiers.

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

#622

Post by winston_smith »

thosakwe wrote: post #358
grawprog wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did pretty well on the standardized tests in high school. If this had existed, i likely would have scored higher than average on adversity. I would be pissed to find out my score was altered in any way due to factors outside my control. If I do well on something, i want it to be from my own merits, whatever my current situation. I don't want to be pandered to because i grew up poor in a shitty neighbourhood. Everyt…

> I would be pissed to find out my score was altered As was mentioned in the article - it doesn't alter your test score.

You're splitting hairs. Their "score" just becomes whatever function the university uses to decide, and if they use it then their score would indeed be altered by the "adversity" score.

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

#623

Post by tropo »

The availability of AP classes is part of the calculation. This will backfire for College Board. Now it becomes undesirable to offer any AP classes in the high school!

Assuming that means AP classes that have been properly registered to use the trademark on transcripts, we will likely see pseudo-AP substitutes. The material will be taught, and students will take the tests, but officially there will not be AP at the school. Students will have to go elsewhere on test day.

Another possibility is that a completely different alternative will become far more popular. This could be dual-enrollment or International Baccalaureate.

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

#624

Post by mehrdadn »

jessaustin wrote: post #614
mehrdadn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes? Ever heard of school vouchers? Wikipedia sums it up: "the evidence to date is not sufficient to warrant recommending that vouchers be adopted on a widespread basis ; however, multiple positive findings support continued exploration." Seems pretty reasonable that we don't let people replace the entire country's educational system with this new one until the evidence in favor of it is extremely compelling.

Didn't your public school teach you not to consider Wikipedia a convincing reference for validating political opinions? Maybe you could have used some vouchers...

> Didn't your public school teach you not to consider Wikipedia a convincing reference for validating political opinions? Maybe you could have used some vouchers...

I think they were too busy teaching me that randos on the internet disputing Wikipedia's sources are definitely more reliable than Wikipedia.

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

#625

Post by vastbinderj »

thosakwe wrote: post #328
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.

> 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…

> I also don't understand how a single organization making a change to its testing package, in the interest of leveling the playing field, is somehow "pushing" your political beliefs in any one direction... It's your choice whether you want to align your beliefs more closely with any side.

Leveling the outcome is NOT leveling the playing field. And by keeping the algorithm secret, it is tyranny not justice.

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

#626

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

thosakwe wrote: post #358
grawprog wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did pretty well on the standardized tests in high school. If this had existed, i likely would have scored higher than average on adversity. I would be pissed to find out my score was altered in any way due to factors outside my control. If I do well on something, i want it to be from my own merits, whatever my current situation. I don't want to be pandered to because i grew up poor in a shitty neighbourhood. Everyt…

> I would be pissed to find out my score was altered As was mentioned in the article - it doesn't alter your test score.

It gives you a separate score.. which is graded along with the first score.. so it effectively alters like OP implied.

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

#627

Post by learc83 »

harryh wrote: post #507
darawk wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is not eating out or taking vacations too much sacrifice?

It is when combined with "commuted 4 hours daily."

I agree. I wouldn't have traded 20 hours a week of time spent with my dad for a better neighborhood.

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

#628

Post by intended »

fiblye wrote: post #307
p1necone wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, but I notice a lot more people clamoring about freedom of speech when it's white supremacists being affected and a lot less when it's ISIS or Al-Qaeda. I find it very hard to take them seriously because of this, despite agreeing with a lot of the sentiment.

I’m pretty tired of people linking any sort of complaint, worry, and defense of their rights to white supremacy or whatever hate group. Plenty of people stand up for their rights because they legitimately care about freedom. It’s not all some conspiracy by hate groups to defend themselves.

Welcome to the world created by faster communication.

At a point where each issue is extremely polarizing, where we connect people around the world - blurring the local and the global - and there’s a new crazy event happening every minute around the world minute - people lose nuance and the ability to stop and compartmentalism events.

Since everything is now part of a never ending stream of outrageous actions, content consumers have adapted by looking at meta identifiers to get a grip on the world around them.

Who is speaking? What are they saying ? Oh? It matches statements used by white supremacists ? Ok, good bye.

I don’t have the time or bandwidth to invest in you.

When everything is accessible and people have only limited processing space - decisions are made on lossy fast information.

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

#629

Post by mythrwy »

remarkEon wrote: post #489
mythrwy wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you are saying, but that means you are advantaged. You had parents that cared and sacrificed and took and interest in your future. With that in mind they also probably made sure you studied and did your homework. To be a bit blunt (and hopefully not offensive, just for example), if someone who didn't have those kind of parents and that type of situation makes the same scores as you, likely they either wor…

This is treading the line of being completely Kafkaesque. I'm having trouble following the discussion in this thread. On the one hand, lots of people are arguing that this test change is BS and will have lots of unintended consequences. Then there's others arguing, not always explicitly, that children should essentially be punished in terms of their "points", for lack of a better term, in college admissions because o…

Maybe I wasn't clear.

The policy is dumb and dangerous, agreed.

But advantage is real. You can't list all the sacrifices your parents made while in the same breathe implying "no advantage here, this isn't fair".

The devil is in devising a fair system to determine advantage in an objective way that won't be rife with corruption and gaming the system. I highly doubt this will be possible and attempts likely will result in less fair and worse outcomes.

So policy wise, agree with OP. But from the story he tells, I think it obvious he does indeed have "advantages" many people don't and this is worth recognizing.

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

#630

Post by wolco »

thosakwe wrote: post #328
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.

> 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…

Let the gamification begin where subpar students move into crime filled areas at least on paper and into rough schools. While paying for private SAT tutors.
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