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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

#651

Post by lenkite »

learc83 wrote: post #639
lenkite wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you avoiding the question? I'll rephrase it. If I give $5k dollars per year for college to every student in America whose parents make under $100k a year, am I denigrating the hard work of the parents who make more than that?

If I give $5k dollars per year, for college, to every student in America whose parents make under $100k a year, am I denigrating the hard work of the parents who make more than that?

No, you certainly are not. But this is completely different from adding a hidden adversity score to the SAT. Your proposal is equality of opportunity to earn merit. The other proposal is manipulation of outcome to negate merit.

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

#652

Post by austincheney »

This whole conversation is stupid. I graduated from high school class rank 380 out of 386 and nearly failed the SAT. I still got into college without any challenge and graduated.

I am now both a US Army officer and a self-taught senior software developer working for a company that until recently generated more revenue than Google. As a hobby I write open source software that is arguably superior and outperforms similar projects coming out of Facebook. My adversity and persistence allowed me to learn a skill that formal education did not and I have been rewarded accordingly.

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

#654

Post by systemBuilder »

A friend of my sons is brilliant with a 1600 SAT and top grades at a top-5 high school in California. Still, he is not admitted to UCLA. Probably his family needs to Move across town to East Palo Alto where there are gunshots every night to increase his adversity score ....

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

#655

Post by z3phyr »

john_moscow wrote: post #414
tankerdude wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "The score will be calculated using 15 factors, including the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s neighborhood." So no, it doesn't account for you to secretly discriminate against you. What it does do, for the penalization part, is that the schools that are in affluent neighborhoods have access to much better resources than ones from Co…

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?

I would rather get operated by an experienced and successful surgeon. Who in their right minds will ask the grades during operation procedure?

I say this of course from the Computer Science perspective. Students scoring A are not necessarily the best Hackers.

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

#656

Post by lazyasciiart »

sokoloff wrote: post #500
mirrorlake wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about an extreme case: a hypothetical person who was born an autistic savant who is a musical genius. They sold out concert halls at age 9-10, playing the hardest classical music ever written. To what degree did they “earn” their skills and their genius? At a certain point you must agree that people are born with brains that are wired better, and they had no control over that. Effort should be rewarded, but luc…

When it comes time to enroll in college, I want that savant to go to the best music secondary school that they want to attend. I don't care whether they were "born with it" or "earned it", but I do care that they demonstrate outstanding ability. Not "outstanding ability, after considering factors X, Y, and Z", but simply "outstanding ability".

And if the savant kid happened to only see a musical instrument for the first time at 10 years old, so that when they took their music entrance exams at 11 years old their performance was very good but not quite at the same level as the other kids who had been learning for 10 years, you would just want to assess all of them on performance at that moment, and choose the kids that had been playing longer because your objective assessment is that they are better musicians.

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

#657

Post by learc83 »

solveit wrote: post #374
learc83 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parents making a sacrifice isn't the same thing as you making a sacrifice. If my dad makes a sacrifice by working 100 hours a week to buy me a Maserati, the car is definitely a privilege not something I earned. And yeah, I may have lost out on spending time with my dad, but that wasn't a choice I made, so while it cost me something it wasn't a sacrifice on my part.

I agree, but do we really want to disincentivise parents sacrificing for their children's education? I'm fine with taxing Maseratis at whatever rate, not so fine with this.

For society as a whole I don't think it is particularly beneficial to encourage people to move to rich neighborhoods/better school districts. The other factors are so far removed from most individual's control that I don't think we'll see much of an impact on behavior.

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

#658

Post by cjhanks »

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 hard work of your parents for you to attend a better school have nothing to do with your potential.

You were fortunate, not everybody was.

You might also consider that the great sacrifices your parents made to place you in a certain environment robbed you of an education others less academically focused learned well. And that some of those skills have value.

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

#659

Post by learc83 »

cljs-js-eval wrote: post #529
learc83 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parents making a sacrifice isn't the same thing as you making a sacrifice. If my dad makes a sacrifice by working 100 hours a week to buy me a Maserati, the car is definitely a privilege not something I earned. And yeah, I may have lost out on spending time with my dad, but that wasn't a choice I made, so while it cost me something it wasn't a sacrifice on my part.

Sometimes it's hard to see the second order effects of our actions, but it seems pretty clear cut how society will be affected if you punish people willing to invest in their childrens' education.

I don't think that encouraging people to move to rich neighborhoods with better schools is necessarily beneficial for society as a whole.

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

#660

Post by XMPPwocky »

sokoloff wrote: post #500
mirrorlake wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about an extreme case: a hypothetical person who was born an autistic savant who is a musical genius. They sold out concert halls at age 9-10, playing the hardest classical music ever written. To what degree did they “earn” their skills and their genius? At a certain point you must agree that people are born with brains that are wired better, and they had no control over that. Effort should be rewarded, but luc…

When it comes time to enroll in college, I want that savant to go to the best music secondary school that they want to attend. I don't care whether they were "born with it" or "earned it", but I do care that they demonstrate outstanding ability. Not "outstanding ability, after considering factors X, Y, and Z", but simply "outstanding ability".

What is "the best school" here? It must be "the school that will best develop their particular talents", right?

Presumably you want them to go to that school so they can produce the best music possible with their abilities, for the benefit of society. The other option I see is that you might want them to go to that school because they have "earned it", but this is silly, especially considering a case where they haven't done anything, and are just naturally talented!

You now have two problems- first, one school might be excellent at training good musicians but not so great at training savants. Second...

Suppose you have one spot in a magical "savant school", which is able to develop somebody's skills better than anywhere else in the world. You'd want to assign the student who would benefit most to this spot- the one who has greatest potential.

This is NOT the student who currently writes the best music- this is the one who will write the best music after attending the school.

You don't care about ability now- you care about ability later. Predicting the latter from the former alone has an obvious flaw- training and practice improve ability.

Because of this, it's a good idea to consider measures of how much training somebody has had, in addition to their current ability, for admissions decisions.

Unfortunately, quantifying that is hard- so other metrics are used as proxies. In considering admission to an Olympic swimmer training program, for example, perhaps one might consider how early somebody learned to swim, or how often they visited a swimming pool.

No?

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