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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

#781

Post by applecrazy »

intenex wrote: post #749
summm wrote: post #717

How about having lots of decent, desirable universities instead of a few elite ones and many weak ones? Furthermore, one could abolish tuition and provide students with living expenses, either all or those who need them. Furthermore, reverse grade inflation in school such that the final grade is a better predictor for learning aptitude. That would solve the stupid admissions problem once and for all. Btw we had all t…

As someone who went to Harvard, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of extremely decent universities that all basically provide the same quality of instruction. People just get unreasonably hung up over the 'best' schools, but there are easily at least like 100+, if not several hundred, that provide easily roughly the same educational experience as far as I'm aware. The peer group may definitely dramatically different fr…

Yep, this is true. Graduating HS senior here, and people don't seem to look past prestige.

Most of us are aware that Harvard/Stanford isn't the end-all, but still chase those institutions anyways.

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

#782

Post by _iyig »

noobermin wrote: post #777
_iyig wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How about having lots of decent, desirable universities instead of a few elite ones and many weak ones? In practice, this is pretty much the case. State schools (e.g. the University of Virginia, University of California-Berkeley, Georgia Tech, etc.) are often quite good in terms of the education provided, and offer lower tuition rates to in-state residents. Forbes and U.S. News & World Report maintain rankings of th…

They'll have to convince employers who are generally from the elite schools that the state schools are actually good and their graduates are worth hiring.

Yes, I agree that this is the tough part, especially in the Bay Area. Once you’ve been working a few years, though, your degree matters much less to potential employers.

One way “second-tier” universities can get around this problem is through mandatory co-op and internship programs. Push students to explore the job market early on, and they’ll start their post-grad job search with confidence, a stronger resume, and a network of contacts from previous co-ops and internships. This network may even include students from “elite” universities, who funnily enough often end up in the same internships and entry-level roles as their less-pedigreed counterparts.

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

#783

Post by applecrazy »

_iyig wrote: post #771
summm wrote: post #717

How about having lots of decent, desirable universities instead of a few elite ones and many weak ones? Furthermore, one could abolish tuition and provide students with living expenses, either all or those who need them. Furthermore, reverse grade inflation in school such that the final grade is a better predictor for learning aptitude. That would solve the stupid admissions problem once and for all. Btw we had all t…

>How about having lots of decent, desirable universities instead of a few elite ones and many weak ones? In practice, this is pretty much the case. State schools (e.g. the University of Virginia, University of California-Berkeley, Georgia Tech, etc.) are often quite good in terms of the education provided, and offer lower tuition rates to in-state residents. Forbes and U.S. News & World Report maintain rankings of th…

The schools you listed-Berkeley, UVA, and GA Tech-are comparable in acceptance rates and in quality to Ivy League schools. Still doesn't solve the problem of having a few elite schools and many weak ones.

These schools are equally, if not harder, to get into as a first-year freshman.

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

#784

Post by avocado4 »

shriphani wrote: post #150

How are they going to boil all this down to a single number? So ridiculous. All these pseudoscientific people have taken the comfy position of unaccountable gatekeepers. Society's true vultures.

I think this is simply a service for universities to easily get info which they already estimate manually. Some colleges will like and use this service, others (schools who already have systems in place to measure these disadvantage points) won't.

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

#785

Post by gnicholas »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #682
gnicholas wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it will just drive up rents in low-income areas, as wealthy parents rent (but do not live in) apartments in order to game this system.

School zoning is a pretty insanely high-stakes thing, and other parents will absolutely rat them out and provide evidence. Parents have been jailed for using an address they don't live at - https://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-schoo...

Sure, that's when you're publicly defrauding a school, and other parents know that you don't really live there. It would be much easier to game this system since you are only reporting your address to the College Board, and no other students/parents would have reason to know that you're not reporting valid information.

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

#786

Post by randunel »

pndy wrote: post #780

This sounds like thing what we had during communistic times in Poland; universities were giving extra points for place of origin of student candidates during entrance exams, adding these to the sum of points obtained for results in individual exams and for grades on the secondary school exit exam aka matura exam. The general idea was to give better chances for young people coming from workers and countryside families

This sort of "positive" discrimination led to more discrimination where I grew up, in Romania. Highschools and universities had "reserved spots" for Moldovans and ethnic gypsies who where placed in classes ahead of ethnic Romanians with higher grades. This led to them being hated and bullied more, many to the point where they dropped out.

Don't fight discrimination with discrimination.

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

#787

Post by jakeogh »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #752
lenkite wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe all the problems you have mentioned can be easily solved. Permit adversity scores to weigh in favour of course grades and graduate honors. Legislation can be passed to ensure adversity scores count towards corporate and government employment to prevent any bumps further down the road. Furthermore, adversity scores should also be counted towards recruitment in elite military units, selection for senior milit…

Disingenuous mockery doesn't help. (If you actually believe that's where people are trying to go then I have worse insults for you.)

Couldn't you instead articulate why you disagree?

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

#788

Post by JamesAdir »

intenex wrote: post #749
summm wrote: post #717

How about having lots of decent, desirable universities instead of a few elite ones and many weak ones? Furthermore, one could abolish tuition and provide students with living expenses, either all or those who need them. Furthermore, reverse grade inflation in school such that the final grade is a better predictor for learning aptitude. That would solve the stupid admissions problem once and for all. Btw we had all t…

As someone who went to Harvard, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of extremely decent universities that all basically provide the same quality of instruction. People just get unreasonably hung up over the 'best' schools, but there are easily at least like 100+, if not several hundred, that provide easily roughly the same educational experience as far as I'm aware. The peer group may definitely dramatically different fr…

+1. A new member in our team has PHD from a top university and an MBA from Columbia business school.I don't how he got there but it was definitely not for the intelligence or smartness. First time I've understood that CBS graduates can be with zero knowledge or smartness.

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

#789

Post by dang »

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…

Would you please not do flamewars on HN? It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#790

Post by manfredo »

bilbo0s wrote: post #683
manfredo wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. The original comment in this chain comes from someone whose family made sacrifices in order to live in an area with good educational opportunities. This 'Adversity Score' would penalize them for making that sacrifice. Between two families with identical incomes, the one that chooses to curb luxuries to live in a place with a better school district would be penalized for that choice. The fact…

Yeah, but if you're doing all that, and you're landing between 34 and 36? I mean, let's be frank, Stanford is not looking at you if you're lower than 33. (Unless you have a wicked 3 point shot. Or you're a genius on the piano or something.) So, yeah, you did all that test prep, and end up scoring about the same as some local yokel from Angleton, TX who took the test cold? Or some broke kid from Chicago who took the t…

> Yeah, but if you're doing all that, and you're landing between 34 and 36? I mean, let's be frank, Stanford is not looking at you if you're lower than 33. (Unless you have a wicked 3 point shot. Or you're a genius on the piano or something.) So, yeah, you did all that test prep, and end up scoring about the same as some local yokel from Angleton, TX who took the test cold? Or some broke kid from Chicago who took the test cold?

There's still a shitload of applicants between a 34 and 36. Easily more than one for every five spots. When you're talking about these universities with single digit admittance rates its not enough to just get good grades and good standardized test scores. Nine AP classes, fives on all the tests, and 4.0 GPA, and a perfect SAT score will guarantee you enough to get in the pile but you've still gotta make yourself shine like the diamond in the bush that all these schools are looking for. Having this 'Adversity Score' that's supposed to measure how much challenge you faced in life make it seem like you're an underdog that toughed it out against all the odds has the potential of being a big advantage.

> Sure, the Angleton guy's parents may be strung out on opioids or whatever, but I gotta be honest, I'm just not seeing why Stanford takes a chance on you as opposed to just giving it to one of the two kids who've proven they can perform at a high level academically test prep or no test prep?

Because not everyone believes in meritocracy. Some believe that Stanford should take bet on the guy's parents that are strung out on opioids even if he has lower test scores to advance their perception of social justice. That's just one possibility. There's also plenty of evidence to suggest that this may be a mechanism to enforce certain informal caps (like the one proven to be enforced on Asians) through geographic discrimination. Basically, a deliberately opaque (remember, this score is private and not given to the student) set of knobs and dials that can be used to achieve what normally can't be achieved legally.

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