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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

#871

Post by dragonwriter »

remote_phone wrote: post #170
Glyptodon wrote: post #18

This seems likely to end up being ugly. For example wealthy people could buy or rent addresses in "adverse" neighborhoods, or charter schools might locate offices there, in order to attempt to improve scores on this metric. At the same time this won't be able to identify many adverse life circumstances like abusive parents, cancer, etc. What it does do is outsource components of admissions decisions the colleges may…

I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while living in our house. If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible. I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahe…

> I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while living in our house.

And that's why thet won't reveal the detailed factors, the time windows over which they are evaluated, and their weighting.

> If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible.

They don't. In fact, that seems to be exactly the problem this addresses, since with this the SAT would no longer be boiling kids into a single number, and it would be incorporating more context than the status quo.

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

#872

Post by dragonwriter »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #867
sjy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing to get a fake divorce so that you can game the system as much as possible isn't punishment; it's probably fraud. You could also choose to relax and let your children enjoy all the other benefits of a great upbringing, and accept that "the children of hardworking parents should be more likely to be admitted" isn't a design goal of the admissions system.

If this guy is going to insane lengths like this, he is probably gaming the system in other ways anyway.

If the guy is going to insane lengths like this, his kids probably have genuine non-economic adversity.

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

#873

Post by doboyy »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #726
robotresearcher wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the feeling, but how about if we rephrase it from another viewpoint: I don’t know why I should be punished because my parents didn’t succeed financially. I work hard in highschool but don’t have extra private tutoring or parents who can help me with calculus homework. I’m hard working and bright but how can I compete with kids from Saratoga High School where everyone’s parents went to MIT/Penn and work a…

The underlying problem is that we're trying to ration something that shouldn't be this scarce. If everybody wants to go to Harvard then why can't they expand the school and accept more students? Because the same brand of metrics trolls who are screwing this up have also screwed up in the school rankings by making schools rank better if they reject more applicants, so now the schools optimize for that .

This is a good point. I think the their intent here is fine, but it seems like the wrong way to go about opening up more opportunities to people who start with somewhat of a disadvantage.

In any case, I don't think you should have to graduate from a prestigious college to find work that helps you live a good life. Maybe this involves making a place like Harvard accept more students, or maybe it involves improving the quality and our perceptions of middle and lower-tier universities. I don't know.

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

#874

Post by dragonwriter »

fenwick67 wrote: post #318
sjy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing to get a fake divorce so that you can game the system as much as possible isn't punishment; it's probably fraud. You could also choose to relax and let your children enjoy all the other benefits of a great upbringing, and accept that "the children of hardworking parents should be more likely to be admitted" isn't a design goal of the admissions system.

If you don't lie it's not fraud. You can game metrics all you want, you can get divorced for any reason.

You can get married for any reason, but that doesn't stop certain perfectly true and legally valid marriages from being marriage fraud in immigration.

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

#875

Post by djtriptych »

yibg wrote: post #770
djtriptych wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but why not include achievement in the face of adversity. Why not consider this a perseverance/tenacity score? Since when does GPA/SAT completely describe fitness for the future?

The question then becomes do we go for an objective scoring system or are we ok with it being subjective? How do you quantify perseverance and tenacity? Is it higher perseverance to grow up in a poor neighborhood or with some chronic disease? Is overcoming ESL or abusive parents more tenacious? Even looking at my own situation I'm not sure which way things should go. I grew up poor to immigrant parents that didn't sp…

There had always been a subjective element in the form of essays and recommendations.

Seems like this adversity score is a way to quantify some of the factors that might have previously been found by other, more subjective means.

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

#876

Post by hyperbovine »

JamesAdir wrote: post #788
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…

+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.

MBA has zero to do with “smartness” as you probably conceive of it. Look at the GMAT if you don’t believe me.

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

#877

Post by PascLeRasc »

remote_phone wrote: post #170
Glyptodon wrote: post #18

This seems likely to end up being ugly. For example wealthy people could buy or rent addresses in "adverse" neighborhoods, or charter schools might locate offices there, in order to attempt to improve scores on this metric. At the same time this won't be able to identify many adverse life circumstances like abusive parents, cancer, etc. What it does do is outsource components of admissions decisions the colleges may…

I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while living in our house. If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible. I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahe…

Did you read this part of the article?

"The rating will not affect students’ test scores, and will be reported only to college admissions officials as part of a larger package of data on each test taker."

Do what you want, but it doesn't seem like this will be any different from writing about adversity in an application essay. Schools can choose how much they want to weigh the score.

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

#878

Post by PascLeRasc »

remote_phone wrote: post #445
sjy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing to get a fake divorce so that you can game the system as much as possible isn't punishment; it's probably fraud. You could also choose to relax and let your children enjoy all the other benefits of a great upbringing, and accept that "the children of hardworking parents should be more likely to be admitted" isn't a design goal of the admissions system.

No it’s not fraud in the least. Nothing says I need to be married at all.

You said you're doing all this for the sake of your kids. What do you think they'll learn from you doing this?

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

#879

Post by bloaf »

indrax wrote: post #863
bloaf wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably something along the lines of: Without accommodation, being able to learn, participate, and demonstrate competency in a series of courses which presume a student's mastery of information presented through secondary education.

Ok. If we take that definition, is there any reason a test shouldn't consider whether a student had a very good school and learned half of what they were given, or a very poor school and learned everything they were exposed to? (a contrived case, of course)

I suspect your question has an unmarked asterisk, which is that the students end up with similar standardized test scores and GPA. For that to happen, it must be the case that a student at the good school can get good grades while learning only half the material, which seems not possible.

And so the answer is that colleges already can and should take into account % learning through GPA.

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

#880

Post by [deleted] »

oefrha wrote: post #838
robotresearcher wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the feeling, but how about if we rephrase it from another viewpoint: I don’t know why I should be punished because my parents didn’t succeed financially. I work hard in highschool but don’t have extra private tutoring or parents who can help me with calculus homework. I’m hard working and bright but how can I compete with kids from Saratoga High School where everyone’s parents went to MIT/Penn and work a…

I went to Stanford with full financial aid (apparently says something about my financials). I didn’t have to work to support the family, but I didn’t have private tutoring either, and my parents didn’t help me with my homework. I didn’t feel punished at all compared to kids who have everything in the world at their disposal; in fact, knowledge in my brain is about the last thing in the world that’s affected by my fam…

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