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

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

#951

Post by busymom0 » Sat, May 18, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

As a brown immigrant from a poor south asian family who recently moved to Canada, I still oppose this. I don't think measuring one student's hardship to another student's can be achieved objectively. What if someone comes from a rich family but was always beaten, ignored, molested, raped by their siblings/parents? Is this person's hardship not as measurable as someone from a poor family but never had to face those issues?

Let's take an example of Elon Musk. His childhood was full of abuse but they weren't poor. How would you compare objectively his score from someone who wasn't abused but was poor? And let's say you give lesser points to Elon, do you think you did the right thing considering he has achieved a ton to push mankind forward?

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

#952

Post by firstplacelast » Sun, May 19, 2019, 6:07 AM UTC

devcpp wrote: post #815

firstplacelast wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. This is a very out-of-touch comment. This isn't about the difference between Harvard and a good state school.

Except it is. Education in the US is relatively cheap and easy to get if you don't aim for private or top schools.

There's still a massive difference between schools that don't fall into the private/top-tier bin. Sorry.

I am from a family of 10 kids and we all went to and were accepted to different schools (all non-private/non-top tier)...there is a massive difference in education levels between schools (maybe it won't affect your career trajectory, but I didn't go to college for a career, I went to learn and be surrounded by others of my caliber).

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

#953

Post by indrax » Sun, May 19, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

bloaf wrote: post #879

indrax wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes similar test scores, for the GPA it might depend on how much we trust the scoring from the good school.

I was imagining that the good school presented more and better information, (perhaps more at the style and pacing of a good college classroom,) While the poor school may not have even presented all the information, or done so in a rushed way. (Focusing on that majority of students bound for community college.)

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

#954

Post by calvinmorrison » Sun, May 19, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

fwip wrote: post #155

calvinmorrison wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

studying is gaming the system?

I know you're being rhetorical, but sure. Studying for the SAT doesn't mean you'll do any better in college.

of course, and many argue that conventional college isn't worth the money. Schooling has always been about jumping through hoops, weeding people out, conforming to the system. Those who play ball inside academia excel at it.

I did not study for my SAT. I did not do great. A long time friend who I consider to be one of my intellectual peers, did study, got a great SAT score, went to college, worked the system and now we both work the same job. None of this is scientific, this is just my experience, however I have always had the feeling that people who excel at following the rules of schools obviously do better in that type of system.

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

#955

Post by fallingfrog » Mon, May 20, 2019, 12:26 AM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #215

I think instead of trying to lower the bar for low income students, we should work on solving the actual problems causing them to perform more poorly on the SAT (or adjust the SAT so it is more representative of their actual skills). If students are accepted with a lower SAT score because of their background, they are likely going to struggle in University, since they have lower scores than the rest of their class, s…

You’re so, so close but maybe having not lived it you can’t quite get there. The difference is not a difference of ability. It’s situation. Did you have to work full time all the way through school? I did. Did you have no support whatsoever from your parents and have to manage to pay rent, hold down a job, and take classes full time? My wife did it. She was on her own at the age of 17, no support. Put herself through school. It has nothing to do with tilting test scores. What people need is material support and frankly, for most working class kids, the only thing that will reliably solve their problems is free education and free room and board while they’re in school. That’s what leveling the field would look like. And that’s not even starting to consider students with small children.

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

#956

Post by rlue » Mon, May 20, 2019, 7:11 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #884

rlue wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant “Harvard” as a metonym for desirable/high-status universities. Like it or not, when an employer has to sift through 100 applications for a single vacancy, a Harvard graduate is far more likely to still be in the running by the time they’ve narrowed it down to five. This matters less the longer you’ve been out of college, but by then, the effect will have made its mark on your resume already anyway.

What do you consider high status? Top 10? Top 20? A poor kid coming out of University fo Wisconsin (ranked ~50) is not going to look as good as a Harvard grad, but so what? That's my point, only a few thousand kids are ever going to get to be from Harvard. That kid from Wisconsin is going to do great, and have plenty of opportunity. It does a huge disservice to imply that he is lesser or lost out because he didn't ma…

Okay, sure. Let's include University of Wisconsin and not include the local community college. University of Wisconsin received north of 42,000 applications for the freshman class of 2019,[0] almost exactly the same number that Harvard did.[1] Even a prestigious-but-small liberal arts college like Reed will have an order of magnitude fewer applications; the local community college, another order of magnitude fewer still.

What I am saying is that we try to protect children from the profound unfairness of the real world, but by the time they're getting ready to go to college, they are competing with each other on a national scale for scarce resources (i.e., a 5% shot at a seat at Harvard, or a 15% shot at a seat at UW if you prefer). I'm not fixating on Harvard specifically, but it is symbolic of this competition for scarce resources and the compounding effects of early advantages and opportunity.

[0]: https://www.wisc.edu/about/facts/ [1]: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/02/record-42742-...

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

#957

Post by XMPPwocky » Mon, May 20, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #843

XMPPwocky wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the best school" here? It must be "the school that will best develop their particular talents", right? Presumably you want them to go to that school so they can produce the best music possible with their abilities, for the benefit of society. The other option I see is that you might want them to go to that school because they have "earned it", but this is silly, especially considering a case where they haven…

The best music school here is the one that they wish to attend. They (and those who advise them) are in a far better position to evaluate the variety of factors that influence that decision than I am, as someone whose only musical instrument ability is a CD player or iPod. Some music savants want to attend a music school that the composer or musician they most admire attended, others the one that is closest to home.

Iiiinteresting. Seriously.

I don't understand why one would want a talented student to get preferential admission to a school because, for example, he liked the design of the campus. I only get the argument that a talented student should get admitted to a school that'll best develop those talents. The link between "you're talented" and "...so you should get to go to any school you want!" is one I don't get.

Why doesn't that lead to absurdities like a school which specifically excels at teaching "low-talent" students, churning out competent (if unexceptional) composers, still admitting talented students preferentially?

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

#958

Post by esyir » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:34 AM UTC

rifung wrote: post #912

esyir wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagreement from me here. I believe that encouraging parents to invest in their children's growth is a good thing. Removing/reducing the benefit of this investment in the child is the kind of perverse incentive that's probably bad for society as a whole. Simply put, parents are now forced to weigh the comparative benefit of a high-end university education over the child's development. I'm betting that diminis…

> I believe that encouraging parents to invest in their children's growth is a good thing. No disagreement from me there. However, I would prefer if a child's outcome were not so dependent on how willing their parents are to make sacrifices. > Simply put, parents are now forced to weigh the comparative benefit of a high-end university education over the child's development. I'm betting that diminishing returns on dev…

Prep classes can result in some side-channel learning. Adversity score manipulation... not so much.

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

#959

Post by stale2002 » Tue, May 21, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #949

stale2002 wrote: post #927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I means, it's the educational experience of top colleges, such as Carnegie Mellon, that I attended. This includes the engineering, math, CS, and social sciences class that I took.

Sorry to hear that your classes at CMU involved just rote memorization and cramming, the two skills that standardized tests like the SAT seem to emphasize most. You apparently must not have availed yourself of course projects, discussion sections, or research experiences. I’m sorry to hear that the vaunted CMU educational experience has apparently gone so far downhill.

My experience was the same as all of my other classmates experience, and it is in the top 3 tech schools in the world.

I am describing what the best schools in the entire world do, and I have lots of knowledge from my classwork, and other classmates experience.

These are the best schools in the world.

And apparently someone else who responded had a similar experience at Stanford, another college that is among the best in the world.

You seem to have zero knowledge about how colleges work at even the literal best schools in the world.

Basically every top college in the world still has tests and final exams and studying and cramming. This is called the "normal college experience" at basically every college and top college in the world (and backed up by someone else in this thread from Stanford!).