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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

#931

Post by svd4anything »

dang wrote: post #789
svd4anything wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can kinda see why you say that, my best guess is if I delete references to politics and progressive, american etc, then you might see it as less an issue.

The comment I was replying to was pretty absurd wording of punishments.

Anyway it’s always a little hard to know exactly how to interpret the guidelines as there is quite a bit of subjectivity.

I do apologize.

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

#932

Post by pertymcpert »

darawk wrote: post #901
pertymcpert wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Really. Your family is not model to be aspirational of. Yours is a warning to others.

To be clear, my family did not make those tradeoffs. I'm not the original commenter. But why do you think such a thing is a warning?

Ok my mistake.

> But why do you think such a thing is a warning?

Because it's a bad way to spend your life.

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

#933

Post by TheOperator »

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…

What's going to happen is the transformation of people believing that you succeeding in SPITE of hardship is no big deal since you got a leg up.

I truly loathe those who "help" the disadvantaged by lowering standards for them.

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

#934

Post by TheOperator »

starpilot wrote: post #126
pjscott wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because we've done studies to address exactly that question. What we've found: The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents, hence the adversity score to rectify the inequity in life circumstances. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/money-academic-su...

So we need to correct the SAT so that the students most likely to be doomed to fail will be admitted to higher education?

To me it doesn't sound like you're trying to make the SAT reflect say academic potential. It seems like you're just trying to inflate the appearantly already inflated scores of the disadvantaged. Who will proceed to not get scholarships, fail out, and be saddled with debt they can't pay off or be discharged. This of course is the road to an egalitarian society!

Who needs to bother with difficult things like making the disadvantaged do a little better in school? Just add 100 points to their SAT. Problem solved.

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

#935

Post by TheOperator »

dmix wrote: post #122
logicx24 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then wealthy people show more "merit" and the test is working as designed. If the test is an accurate predictor of success in college and success thereafter (which is a big if), then that people who do well on it are more deserving of college admissions. The ancillary qualities of that group of people (wealth, race, etc.) are irrelevant.

This is the reality of the situation that people don't want to admit. This is a social engineering problem related to the outcomes of college entrance processes. It's not really about the test or how we are measuring aptitude. This problem would be far better solved elsewhere in the chain instead of blurring the meaning of data and pretending that things are different.

Yes but fucking with the metrics costs almost nothing. Does almost nothing too.

It can even backfire by sending a bunch of disadvantaged kids to programs they're not prepared to succeed at to "help them" get saddled with college debt they can't discharge.

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

#936

Post by travmatt »

pacala wrote: post #689
astura wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SAT is administered by College Board which is an entirely private institution.

The federally & state funded public Universities that will fall over each other to employ adversity scores as a pillar of their academic life, on the other hand... One can attempt to outsource responsibility from a legalistic perspective, but from a moral perspective one can't escape it.

That seems like quite a stretch to rationalize why a private entity making decisions about its internal processes is actually government mandated overreach.

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

#937

Post by mrep »

lizardking wrote: post #831
arkh wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand though it might be essentially impossible to close the gap between low income and high income students. If this is a goal a society set it is possible. Remove the parents from being involved in their children education. When born, remove the children from their parents and send them to some national education system until they're adults.

Not sure if that is intended genuinely, but as a parent who also experienced growing up in poverty, I find that solution to be worse than the problem.

Which is why people keep citing the dystopian fiction story of Harrison Bergeron [0].

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

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

#938

Post by prirun »

Nature and life is full of diversity, from where you are born to the structure of your brain to the occupation of your parents.

We say "celibrate diversity", but then try to quash it by making everyone appear equal and the same.

We are born in different circumstances. Sometimes being rich is a hindrance, making people lazy and unmotivated. Sometimes being poor is a hindrance. But sometimes it is motivation to work hard to escape poverty.

I think it's a little crazy that a committee of people get together and think they can "fix" someone's life circumstances, while in the process they are also hurting others'. We are not wise enough to make these decisions for others.

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

#939

Post by [deleted] »

learc83 wrote: post #915
Mirioron wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not systemic oppression. The system doesn't try to keep poor people poor or uneducated. Do poor people have it harder? Yes, but they have many of the same opportunities available to them. The modern world is rich in information that is freely taught. College is signaling in large part, but there are plenty of opprobrious right now where skill beats signaling.

>The system doesn't try to keep poor people poor or uneducated. The system doesn't have motives. Individual behavior can give rise to systemic oppression with no top level design goals needed. If we take a look at Black people specifically: Black sounding last names are half as likely to receive callbacks for job interviews. Black people are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and receive longer sentences for comm…

[deleted]

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

#940

Post by dang »

jachee wrote: post #722
remote_phone wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-rigging? I’ve worked my ass off for nearly 30 years, as has my wife. We are both smart and very hard working and it paid off. My roots are middle class at best. My parents are immigrants and were extremely poor as children but they also worked hard and went from poverty to middle class. I’m teaching my children to work hard and be good people and contribute to this world. How pray tell am I benefiting from “pre-r…

The system is pre-rigged against: • People of color • LGBTQ • Lower-than-upper-middle-class • Divorced and/or single-parent homes • Rural families You talk about the decisions you made. The fact that you even had a choice is a privilege denied to many. For each of the above that you didn't have to overcome, that's a way the system is rigged in your favor. Your children won't be disadvantaged in any way, and you're fr…

> Take a break from your "I gotta get mine before anyone else gets any!" attitude

Can you please edit personal slights like that out of your comments to HN? They break the site guidelines and undermine your case.

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

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