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

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

#91

Post by leetcrew » Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

ZebZ wrote: post #89

leetcrew wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

the original word choice was "prepared", which has a different meaning from "capable". if the poor kid never took calculus in high school and the rich kid already understands integration, that's probably two whole college semesters behind on a STEM track. there's no way you could say they're at the same level of preparedness for college. as for "capable", who knows?

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

#92

Post by lallysingh » Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:13 PM UTC

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?

I don't think the factor is for kids who did poorly. This is a bonus (AFAICT) added on top of a reasonable test result. One that indicates that the student had some hardship that they overcame to get the result. Which should make the result count more as the kid had to go through more to get it done.

Who's more impressive on average? Students with a 1200 SAT in an area with low crime and upper middle class income, or students with a 1200 SAT in an area with high crime and low income? There's a presumption that the latter probably had external challenges to overcome.

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

#93

Post by lallysingh » Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #78

lallysingh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation between two factors doesn't tell you how to compare two sets of values. Kids who have to work after school until bedtime won't get as good grades in HS, but if no longer made to do so, may perform substantially better in college.

>but if no longer made to do so And that's the key. You're positing that the disadvantage magically stops in university. I work in law school admissions prep, and you see these disadvantages all the way down the line: SAT, college grades, LSAT, law school grades, Bar exam passage rate There are some cases where it stops. Maybe the college board can identify which variables may indicate a poor correlation. There might…

> you see these disadvantages all the way down the line: SAT, college grades, LSAT, law school grades, Bar exam passage rate

Can you say more about this? Do students who (presumably) leave home to go to college still have as-significant challenges after? How so?

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

#94

Post by mcphage » Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #59

mcphage wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, although if colleges accepted you under the assumption that you reported who you were honestly, and then later found out that you weren’t who you claimed to be, you might find your acceptances revoked.

How would they find out my race? Based on the looks? So they would count Michael Jackson as “white”? What if a person looks white but has black ancestors?

If you apply for a scholarship based on your heritage, how do they decide if you qualify?

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

#95

Post by RandomInteger4 » Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #26

This is all that I could think of: Privilege Points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM

When I was immersed in the leftist outrage bubble, I used to think this video was ridiculous and insulting, but after breaking out of that bubble, this video has become startlingly accurate.

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

#96

Post by ilamont » Thu, May 16, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #86

leetcrew wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Wit…

Residency scams are a long-standing issue around Boston and in Boston itself (parents of suburban kids attempting to get their kids into exam schools like Boston Latin). This article explains the difficulties and expenses associated with catching families trying to get around the residency requirements: https://www.patriotledger.com/x792538354/Quincy-schools-crac...

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

#97

Post by oh_sigh » Thu, May 16, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #54

ben_jones wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like they were able to suss out all the student athletes who didn't actually do anything?

Considering the FBI busted the ringleader of the scam and a bunch of people are going to jail, this seems like an example of the system working.

The FBI only busted them because a person they were investigating for a completely separate issue told them about this in hopes to get a more lenient sentence. So yes, it is the system working, but we got very lucky the FBI stumbled upon this information.

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

#98

Post by Qwertystop » Thu, May 16, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

changchuming wrote: post #73

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…

Your suggestion relies on the assumption that there is some way to change standardized tests such that they do not correlate with wealth. Perhaps the problem is that academic ability is directly correlated to the kind of test prep you receive, so unless you set a test paper full of trivia questions the student that has gone through test prep will perform better every time. I do not agree with this idea either, but on…

If you do set a test paper full of trivia questions, that just changes the sort of things in the test-prep program. Anything studiable is going to correlate with the amount of time spent studying, therefore with wealth. People do study for Jeopardy.

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

#99

Post by scott_s » Thu, May 16, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #67

didgeoridoo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you reliably capture race, or sexual orientation, or gender identification — or even income — on a self-reported metric with no third-party validation? They aren't talking about sending the College Board your tax returns. Realistically, this will be based on ZIP code and registered high school. Information that's already publicly-available. This changes nothing except potentially making neighborhood-level a…

Sexual orientation, yeah they might not be able to get that one. But here's the factors they're using: https://twitter.com/i/moments/1129009648214921216 I do believe with just a few pieces of the information they're taking into consideration (namely, neighborhood, if you have a single parent, and if you're ESL [not sure if they're talking about the child being ESL or the parents]) you could reliably determine if the…

> But I highly doubt you'll find a lot of poor white kids in West Virginia getting boosted scores via this scheme.

That is exactly what I expect to happen - as well as poor kids who happen to belong to racial minorities. The College Board published the criteria they will use to calculate the score. Race is not one of the criteria. But you're saying that race will not only be used, but be the primary criteria. So, let's be clear: you're saying the College Board is lying. Which, I can't prove they are not, but I'm inclined to trust them over your claims.

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

#100

Post by graeme » Thu, May 16, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #93

graeme wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but if no longer made to do so And that's the key. You're positing that the disadvantage magically stops in university. I work in law school admissions prep, and you see these disadvantages all the way down the line: SAT, college grades, LSAT, law school grades, Bar exam passage rate There are some cases where it stops. Maybe the college board can identify which variables may indicate a poor correlation. There might…

> you see these disadvantages all the way down the line: SAT, college grades, LSAT, law school grades, Bar exam passage rate Can you say more about this? Do students who (presumably) leave home to go to college still have as-significant challenges after? How so?

Actually, I should have been specific: you see disadvantages related to ethnic group down the line. If a group has a lower SAT score, they generally have the same gap on the LSAT, GRE, GMAT etc.

This is heavily related to socioeconomic status in the US. IIRC, in the UK for example you don't see these same gaps between ethnic groups. So it's something specific to US social circumstances, and not racial.

I don't know so much about particular circumstances, I just know what the high level stats say, and am inferring from that. I'm not American, so I don't have lived experience of the class structure there.

There are probably studies about income, but the test makers tend to only collect official data about ethnicity. It's commonly used as a proxy for social class, but I wish the test makers had better data about the elements the College Board is trying to capture with this new policy.

It's about one standard deviation between high scoring groups and low scoring groups across the tests.

* SAT: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-percentile...

* MCAT: https://www.aamc.org/download/321498/data/factstablea18.pdf

* GMAT: https://www.gmac.com/-/media/files/gmac/research/gmat-test-t...

* GRE https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/snapshot_test_taker_data_2017....

LSAC no longer has theirs posted publicly, but it was much the same.

So, to the extent ethnicity is a proxy for social class in the US, we can say that the disadvantage these groups have at SAT time doesn't vanish by the time they take graduate level exams.

I wish I had some data for you that was based on social circumstances other than race, but I don't have deep knowledge in the domain, only what I've seen looking at the reports produced by the test companies recently.