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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

#701

Post by thereare5lights »

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…

> 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 any one race.

The powers that be do not get the benefit of the of doubt after all the shenanigans they've pulled over the past century.

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

#702

Post by prvc »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #232
prvc wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate: do you think children who lack families that provide such advantages must necessarily "suffer" as a consequence of that lack? And conversely, why did you wait to object until this, in particular, became a consideration instead of before (when ethnicity and other factors were already considerations)?

I can’t speak for the original commenter, but lots of people did not wait to object to this. What’s uniquely bad about this is that it doesn’t have even the facade of holistic analysis. The College Board is counting up how oppressed they think you are, and telling colleges to count your score less if you don’t have enough oppression points.

My comment was tailored specifically to be a response to the comment above it. Haven't read all of the other comments in this thread, or looked into the implementation details yet, but yes, a fundamental criticism of this action is that the SAT purports to measure "aptitude" rather than "oppression", and it's hard to immediately see how such a feature would improve the test score's accuracy with regard to the former characteristic. Another criticism is that this could increase the attack surface for "gaming the system" rather than reduce it.

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

#703

Post by thereare5lights »

marrone12 wrote: post #292
verylongname wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. The United States has a system of de jure discrimination against white and asian men. Moreover, there is a great deal of de facto discretization against them as well. Many people seem to think that it is "fair" and appropriate for this to be the case, but I don't think its debatable that this is the fact of the matter. I think those who support this policy should defend it…

Ah yes, the system of discrimination that nevertheless has white and asian men disproportionately over-represented in silicon valley, tech companies, and government.

Ah yes, one microcosm of American society is representative of the obstacles that Asians and Asian men in particular face.

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

#705

Post by cm2187 »

droithomme wrote: post #199
BonesJustice wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might have to do with wanting to avoid people trying to game the system? Not that I expect the shroud of secrecy to actually mitigate that problem.

The purpose of this sort of secrecy is to avoid people seeing how the system is gamed against them.

Or rather to keep the capacity to arbitrage the system to insiders.

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

#706

Post by daseiner1 »

hrktb wrote: post #698
_Nat_ wrote: post #135

> The score would not be reported to the student, only to college officials. This seems really sketchy. I mean, I can completely understand why the College Board would want to avoid blowback from students knowing their scores, but their convenience seems like insufficient cause to deny students access to their own information.

If this score is to replace the current college admission weighting, wouldn’t it be logical for it to have the same opacity from the student ? Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think students get to check their college admission evaluation results.

You're aware of your SAT scores, you're aware of your transcripts; you're aware of your essays and extra-curriculars; you aren't aware (or aren't supposed to be) of the content of your recommendation letters, but you can choose who you have write them. So sure, give this the same visibility as all of the above and make it visible to the student.

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

#707

Post by jachee »

svd4anything wrote: post #690
jachee wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing those in privilege is how you achieve equality. They can't give up that inequality voluntarily, and wouldn't if they could.

Wow punishing those in privilege creates equality. The logic “progressive” american politics is pursuing is truly scary and broken. Hating the rich is hate. If you really loved the poor you would think how to help them lift themselves up. Holding down the top both doesn’t work and is deeply unethical. College board should provide free tutoring and review classes based of their adversity score instead. I can’t image t…

>If you really loved the poor you would think how to help them lift themselves up

I know! Let's give them a bit of advantage in getting an education.

Oh, wait.

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

#708

Post by bdowling »

hnaccy wrote: post #227
enraged_camel wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahead. Just to offer some general commentary, I think this mentality is probably the root of most of our social ills: people see everything as a "race" and they work hard to "get ahead", and they therefore get angry at policies that attempt to even the playing field because it might help others "catch up".

Sorry I don't want to live in Harrison Bergeron world.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

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

#709

Post by barbecue_sauce »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #641
hetman wrote: post #633

While equalising opportunity is a noble endeavour, I fail to see how this particular initiative would achieve that. In short, it's too little too late. If someone struggled through high school because of environmental factors, they're not going to suddenly be on their A-game because they were admitted into university. At the end of the day, we should still expect the highest levels of excellence from our professional…

The article said that it won’t alter the score. If someone went to a decent school, lived a care free life, and scored decently well, and then another student had the same score despite coming from a worse school district and having to work a part time job throughout high school, my bet would be on the later persons success. Maybe they’d perform similarly in college, and the struggler would still struggle, but post g…

Had to work a part time job throughout high school? Don't most people do this?

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

#710

Post by bdowling »

knolax wrote: post #206
EventH- wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally irrelevant; this isn't a matter of the author being one thing or another. The point Vonnegut makes in the story is a philosophical one, namely that a blind pursuit of equality is wicked and inhuman, which is transparently correct.

Arguing that point with a fictional novel seems incredibly opaque, inefficient, and sometimes disingenuous.

Sometimes fiction is the best way to express truth.
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