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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

#81

Post by changchuming »

tlb wrote: post #28
abakker wrote: post #16

This seems fine if you wanted to use the SAT to measure an outcome for a given level of inputs . If all you actually care about is the actual outcome though, then this doesn't actually help. I guess there could be both use cases for test scores, given that higher education might actually find itself more concerned with showing improvement as an important metric. They might prefer students that show more aptitude for…

Past adversity is in the past. So if someone grew up in a poor environment but you're thinking of admitting them to a good college on full scholarship, they'll soon be progressing at the rate they're capable of without the adversity. So the best predictor of future success in a good environment probably does include a correction for past adversity.

1) Why do you think their circumstances will change once they're in University?

2) There is the assumption that the environment in which you grew up in does not permanently affect the way you learn, while many studies have proven this to be untrue. The most critical years shaping the way you learn is in the younger years. Once you're past that, there is no way you can "make up" for it just by going to a better college.

A radical solution I believe is to completely subsidize all education and child rearing costs, such that every child will at least have the necessary basic conditions needed for them to excel. Of course, parents are always going to try and give their kids an edge, but at some point there'll be diminishing marginal returns. To relieve pressure on governmental funding, another radical idea is to couple this with an upper limit on the number of children you can have, so people will not "overburden" the system by having too many children.

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

#82

Post by logicx24 »

pjscott wrote: post #79
logicx24 wrote: post #44

This, like every other similar attempt made to "equalize" the SAT, is misguided and will accomplish little. If the SAT correlates too strongly with wealth, then Collegeboard should make a better test. Make one that changes significantly every year so direct test-prep is hard. Choose different types of critical reading passages and questions each year, vary the style of the math questions - make the test different eno…

Imagine a perfect SAT that preparation can't affect; for the purposes of the hypothetical, the test just stares into your soul and measures pure scholastic aptitude. If (a) scholastic aptitude has a significant effect on your lifetime income, (b) people tend to marry people of similar social and economic class, and (c) scholastic aptitude is fairly heritable (through genes, environment, whatever)... ... then you woul…

I mentioned this below, but if the test is a perfect predictor of future success, then the people that perform well on it are absolutely worthy of college admissions, and there should be no further analysis required. If the test is perfect, then the characteristics of the people that do well on that test don't matter. The reason we need to do implement equalizers like this is because such a test is impossible.

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

#83

Post by leetcrew »

nostrademons wrote: post #69
CryoLogic wrote: post #7

Soon we will have SAT advisers suggesting how to game the "adversity score" as well. - Get a summer job "because your family needed money" - Move out of your parents house for a summer "bad living conditions" - Adopt some non-binary gender temporarily "bullied for identifying as x" - CEO dad drops salary to $20k for a year and instead gets stock vesting equivalent "poor family" etc. etc.

Most of the 15 factors are reported here, 4 paragraphs down: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adversity-score-sat-exam-colleg... "Neighborhood environment will take into account crime rate, poverty rate, housing values and vacancy rate. Family environment will assess what the median income is of where the student's family is from; whether the student is from a single parent household; the educational level of the parents…

> Most billionaires are not willing to move into a high-crime, high-poverty neighborhood with shitty housing

sure, but I don't think any existing laws would prevent them from just buying a second house in a bad part of their home town and using that address for applications and I can't see how the College Board could reliably detect this.

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

#84

Post by tlb »

graeme wrote: post #45
tlb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past adversity is in the past. So if someone grew up in a poor environment but you're thinking of admitting them to a good college on full scholarship, they'll soon be progressing at the rate they're capable of without the adversity. So the best predictor of future success in a good environment probably does include a correction for past adversity.

The tests are correlated with grades. You're trying to say the correlation isn't there for some subgroups. Are you basing it on anything? The same gaps that appear on these undergrad tests show up on the grad school tests such as the LSAT, GMAT, GRE etc.

I'm not trying to say there's no correlation from some subgroups. Obviously there is.

I'm trying to say that if you're trying to predict performance in a new environment (college) you can improve the prediction by correcting for factors (bad home environment during high school) that affect current test scores but won't be active in the future.

How large the correction should be can only be answered by large population studies.

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

#85

Post by lotu »

SeanAppleby wrote: post #55
crazygringo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says: > It would be calculated using 15 factors, like the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s home neighborhood. The score would not be reported to the student, only to college officials. None of those suggest they're linked to individual actions like your examples are -- and that makes sense since the SAT can know the student's schools and a…

You could do three years at a great school and then cap off with one year at a bad school to grab the diploma.

That is going to look like you fucked up horribly at great school and where going to get expelled but managed to avoid it by transfering.

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

#86

Post by nostrademons »

leetcrew wrote: post #83
nostrademons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the 15 factors are reported here, 4 paragraphs down: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adversity-score-sat-exam-colleg... "Neighborhood environment will take into account crime rate, poverty rate, housing values and vacancy rate. Family environment will assess what the median income is of where the student's family is from; whether the student is from a single parent household; the educational level of the parents…

> Most billionaires are not willing to move into a high-crime, high-poverty neighborhood with shitty housing sure, but I don't think any existing laws would prevent them from just buying a second house in a bad part of their home town and using that address for applications and I can't see how the College Board could reliably detect this.

Your primary residence is listed on your tax returns and determines which school district you're entitled to attend. Misrepresenting it can result in criminal charges, and schools do check:

https://whyy.org/segments/the-money-shot-how-school-district...

They'd have a tough time explaining to colleges why their transcript is from Good School District Across Town when they listed their address as Dumpy Neighborhood With Bad Schools.

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

#87

Post by lotu »

the_jeremy wrote: post #20

Colleges can already access this information in other ways. This is just a proprietary weighing of these things into one number. Given the information the SAT has access to, the number seems likely to be based around the student's address and school, rather than unique challenges to that student, like how present parents are in the student's life and if they have to care for younger siblings or need a part time job t…

Just because a school has access to the information doesn't mean they have the expertise, time, or money, to turn that information into a number that can then be used in admissions. Admissions tests have existed for centuries the idea of the SAT is by having a single standard you can have one group of people make a better test for less money (and student time). This is very much the same thing, figuring out how to rank high schools and estimate adversity by street address for the whole nation is a HARD problem.

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

#89

Post by ZebZ »

leetcrew wrote: post #60
lallysingh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they likely to be unprepared?

because (we're meant to assume at least) that's why they did poorly in the test in the first place?

If a poor kid goes to a shitty school and has life impediments that limit the amount of studying and preparation they do and still scores a 1300, is that kid any less capable than a rich kid who goes to a private school and has all the opportunity in the world and gets 1500?

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

#90

Post by Balgair »

crazygringo wrote: post #43
CryoLogic wrote: post #7

Soon we will have SAT advisers suggesting how to game the "adversity score" as well. - Get a summer job "because your family needed money" - Move out of your parents house for a summer "bad living conditions" - Adopt some non-binary gender temporarily "bullied for identifying as x" - CEO dad drops salary to $20k for a year and instead gets stock vesting equivalent "poor family" etc. etc.

The article says: > It would be calculated using 15 factors, like the relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s home neighborhood. The score would not be reported to the student, only to college officials. None of those suggest they're linked to individual actions like your examples are -- and that makes sense since the SAT can know the student's schools and a…

Hold up.

This adversity score is advertized so that it will help out poorer and more abused students, in an emperical way.

But what this is actually telling schools is if the person is rich-ish or not. Basically, can this family pay the bills and are they likely to attend football games and be donating alumni?

Call me cynical, but if anything, this is going to further segregate the schools towards the rich-ish.

This will give schools a guise under which they can say: 'Look, we're diverse!' But it will allow the space (and the ML inputs) for the schools to maximize profits.

I know that you are very unlikely to be able to maximize all diversity at once. Like, admitting more black women may come at the cost of matriculation rates for transgender people, or more Hispanic people in STEM classes may come at the cost of Asian people in humanties courses, etc. Nothing is perfect.

But this really feels like a Trojan Horse.

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