SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships • Hacker News Board

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

#801

Post by hrktb » Fri, May 17, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

daseiner1 wrote: post #706

hrktb wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The difference is these informations are produced or sourced by you, the extra 'adversity score', and what it replaces are external to you (and in this case it's not even personal)

I see the issue with info circulating outside of your oversight that has impact on your life, I am just thinking they are basically keeping the status quo on this.

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

#802

Post by LoSboccacc » Fri, May 17, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

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…

> having lots of decent, desirable universities instead of a few elite ones and many weak ones?

it's not about the curriculum, it's about who you meet there and what can you make of those connections. you can't avoid the elite to bunch up in few places, because they intimately know that the game is about whom you know and how you can leverage family ties well before the smart kid from middle class background learn that the world outside academia isn't a meritocracy.

even if universities were all equally performant in teaching, people who managed to connect with the elite frequenting key places would still get a jump start in the life outside.

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

#803

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, May 17, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

applecrazy wrote: post #781

intenex wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thing that still bothers me is the cognitive dissonance of being told by people orders of magnitude smarter than me that institution doesn’t matter. Yeah, if it didn’t you wouldn’t have gone to a HYPSM or out of state public ivy.

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

#804

Post by boomlinde » Fri, May 17, 2019, 7:56 AM UTC

jakeogh wrote: post #787

Dylan16807 wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The point is that it's hard to make a constructive answer to a post that doesn't really offer a clear argument of its own.

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

#805

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, May 17, 2019, 7:56 AM UTC

_iyig wrote: post #782

noobermin wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

I did more internships than average at my school (the norm is 1, I did 4) and while I did cultivate contacts with “elites” I’d disagree that they end up in the same entry level roles as people like me. If anything there’s a bigger difference!

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

#806

Post by intertextuality » Fri, May 17, 2019, 8:03 AM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #774

cm2187 wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actively pushing and monitoring children's education has probably a lot more to do with academic success than free time. I am not aware that the asian minority has much more money and free time than anyone else.

At the end of the day some children will belong to Culture X which is more compatible with academic achievement that Culture Y. My best friend growing up was a Korean kid whose parents almost tortured him and his siblings to excel in school. His pain and sacrifice deserve to count for something.

Or perhaps we can look into alternate systems that don't reward excruciating studying and working systems. Perhaps standardized testing like the SAT is fundamentally flawed and we need to figure out better assessment systems.

> South Korea has the 10th highest suicide rate in the world.

Note that this is also inflated due to an abnormally high elderly suicide rate due to some systemic factors.

> Although lower than the rate for the elderly, grade school and college students in Korea have a higher than average suicide rate.

One example alternative would be de-emphasizing the utmost need for a degree, and emphasizing trades as an alternative. Not everyone should need a degree, and from an academia standpoint it makes having a college degree relatively worthless and slowly turns universities into degree mills.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_South_Korea

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

#807

Post by hyperdunc » Fri, May 17, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

pishpash wrote: post #610

It's really time to give ugly people, short people, fat people, etc. an adversity score boost. I mean what could be more adverse?

What we really need to do is remove all adversity and all other incentives for people to better themselves. I mean, what good ever came from people trying to overcome struggle and strife?

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

#808

Post by sadris » Fri, May 17, 2019, 8:10 AM UTC

throwawaymath wrote: post #684

sadris wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs in most non-merit based social settings. 95% of all churches are 95% homogeneous. Racial groups self segregate at lunch tables. 85% of millennials don't have a single friend outside their own racial group. In merit based settings like employement, the employer is going to be selecting for IQ so the racial demographic of the employees is irrelevant, only their productivity.

I hate to be that person, but could you maybe cite those statistics? I was willing to give a pass on 95% of churches being 95% racially homogeneous, but I'm deeply skeptical the 85% figure is true for all millennials.

Sorry it was 75%: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/25/three...

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

#809

Post by intertextuality » Fri, May 17, 2019, 8:12 AM UTC

applecrazy wrote: post #783

_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…

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.

The point is that many state colleges provide ample education. Some provide very good education depending on what areas they specialize in.

USC (South Carolina) is #1 for international business, for example. As I recall we also had good engineering programs. I can't speak for the CS department, but I do know some very smart professors are there, since some of my friends did research there.

USC was the only college I applied to, and I had zero doubts that I'd ever get in (since I didn't go in for IB/business).

Now, networking is a totally different animal. Of course a lot of universities can't match the kind of networking that happens at Ivy leagues. For most people I don't think this is really an issue though as long as you go to a "good"ish university.

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

#810

Post by smilekzs » Fri, May 17, 2019, 8:12 AM UTC

martin__ wrote: post #421

smilekzs wrote: post #315

As a reference: The Chinese equivalent, Gaokao [0], is notorious for its brutal difficulty, but also widely regarded [citation needed] as a great equalizer. To that end, high school students spend obscene amount of their class time doing test prep (yes, in school instead of after). Although YMMV, and the total score usually spreads out quite nicely without need for curving (one such attempt was recently made [1]; it…

Actually, the Gaokao does have something that might be similar where ethnic minorities get extra points: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1595620876524810727&wfr=spi...

That, however, does NOT favor the rich, mod cheating/forgery, which surprisingly does get caught, due to the widespread expectation of the system to be fair.

And there used to be bonus points for STEM Olympiads, which had totally worked as intended by providing a sound alternative for the talented / hard-working specialists who have not so much family backing. There were varying degrees of cheating (mostly in the form of leaked problem banks), more rampant in some provinces than others, but AFAIK the asking price was not totally out of reach for the common working family, so it'd be unfair to say cheating the exam favors the rich either.