New Adversity Score on SAT factors in socioeconomic background into score

Why do they need to go to Harvard? There is school for everyone. Go to community college or a trade school. Stay in your lane.

Jejenen wrote:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/adversity-score-sat-exam-college-board-calculate-students-admissions-college-wall-street-journal/

Discuss

lol - this is actually going to end up hurting wealthy african-americans, who statistically do worse on standardized tests than poor whites. Libs are not going to like the unintended consequences of this one.

Cool. My wife and I are going to get divorced, then we'll rent out an apartment in a poor part of town to be her legal residence. Of course her and the kids will visit me Monday through Sunday of every week, but they will, on paper, be in the sole custody of their mom who lives in a studio apartment on a part-time nurse's salary. They'll have an awesome adversity score.

nagoya wrote:

Jejenen wrote:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/adversity-score-sat-exam-college-board-calculate-students-admissions-college-wall-street-journal/

Discuss

lol - this is actually going to end up hurting wealthy african-americans, who statistically do worse on standardized tests than poor whites. Libs are not going to like the unintended consequences of this one.

And help the Asians even more. Many Asians kids from very poor background do very well on SAT. The libs just can't stomach the fact that blacks and Hispanics are always the laggards. Just look at the whole world. Look even within Mexico and other South American countries. See who is in charge.

waaah wrote:

Did you live in a neighborhood that was unsafe and had lots of violence? Did you ever go hungry? Did you wear hand-me-down clothes that were aged and/or tattered to school? Did you have to live in government housing and get free lunches at school?

Your parents may not have been much vested in you but you probably had it a heckuva lot easier than other kids that didn't have 2 parents with PhDs.

Society CAN fix a lot of the issues that come from growing up poor. Why shouldn't we try to make life fair as possible?

This is all obviously true, but using the word "privilege" to describe these differences is a bit of semantic sleight of hand. No question that not having enough to eat, being evicted on a semi-regular basis, being surrounded by kids who don't study and are into bad stuff, etc., are all disadvantages. I don't think most people consider the lack of those things to be a "privilege."

When people on the left talk about privilege, there are a lot of things getting tossed in there that should probably be treated distinctly. For instance, I don't think the following things are all identical in their moral implications: Straight up bribes, legacy admissions, test prep, private school, good public schools, good charter schools, tutors, parents who have intellectually substantive conversations with their kids, summer camp, the confidence from being around successful and articulate people on a regular basis, the assumption of competence people give you because of the color of your skin and your attire (the latter, of course, can be exacerbated by the extreme effect of affirmative action).

I said I had the advantage of educated parents and a comfortable life and I didn’t complain that someone from an underprivileged background had beat me out for a spot at an ivy because they hadn’t, so your “waaah” comment missed the mark.

If you read the article the OP linked to, you’ll see that the SAT score adjustment is based largely on statistical assumptions about the student’s background. That’s a lot of adjusting based on a zip code. I wholeheartedly do support finding talent among students from backgrounds that otherwise prevent them from suitable academic opportunities, but it needs to happen much earlier in their lives and not be left up to a broad algorithm at age 17/18. An artificially inflated SAT score will get you into a school whose academic standards you then can’t meet, and then what? It’s a recipe for failure.

If brojos' mommy can pay someone to cheat on the test for them, then anyone can.

The really f'd thing about this adversity score is that only colleges would see the score. Students would have no idea what their score is. That's insanity.

A bunch of communists. This is equivalent to hiring the least qualified candidate because he hasn’t had the same opportunities as the other candidates. This score says that these kids had less opportunities and support which is why they are more ignorant than their peers. Why would a college want a less qualified student? Isn’t it even more unfair that 2 students have the same opportunities but one still scores higher due to genetics? This formula won’t help that person. Soon we will just admit everyone and give everyone the same grade and the same pay for the same effort. C o m m u n i s m.

How good a runner you can be is to a large degree determined by genetics. Same thing with academic success.

my SAT aint’t your daddy’s SAT wrote:

The new revised SAT is already sad enough in its lowered expectations.

What do you mean by this? I wouldn't call the new SAT easier than the previous version. Some math topics, like geometry, play a smaller role than before, but I certainly don't think it's any easier. Besides, as with any standardized test, what matters is one's percentile score. A 99th percentile score today is just as hard as it was five years ago.

javery529 wrote:

This is actually pretty awesome.

Based on your use of the word "tarded" you appear to be in high school or at least an undergrad.

It's easy as hell to score high on a test when you have a supporting home environment, parents that help you prep for the specific test and the money to be tutored when failing.

You think kids growing up wondering where their next meal is coming from or if they'll have a warm winter coat are afforded those same options and able to focus on prepping for a BS standardized test while also helping raise their siblings?

While I agree that there is not a level playing field, I think the purpose of the SAT is to measure students' abilities as they sit on test day. The factors that go into why a certain student has they abilities they have is sort of beyond the scope of what the test should be measuring.

This is a problem that runs deeply in our school system, but I am reluctant to say that the answer is to simply lower the bar for entry and colleges for certain demographics of students.

Here's a real part of the problem that most people don't want to acknowledge: The SAT correlates reasonably well with IQ (.6-.8 correlation coefficient). There is a measurable difference in IQ between various races. Much (not all) of the SAT race disparity can be explained by IQ disparity. To assume that this disparity exists due to environment or upbringing is to take a stand on a point that experts in the field aren't willing to.

killermike wrote:

my SAT aint’t your daddy’s SAT wrote:

The new revised SAT is already sad enough in its lowered expectations.

What do you mean by this? I wouldn't call the new SAT easier than the previous version. Some math topics, like geometry, play a smaller role than before, but I certainly don't think it's any easier. Besides, as with any standardized test, what matters is one's percentile score. A 99th percentile score today is just as hard as it was five years ago.

My age is showing. I took mine before 1995. Google the recentering or recalibration of SAT scores in 1995, you’ll see what I mean.

A few things:

1. It is interesting that we try to accommodate for certain traits like race or gender but not for other traits that are equally indelible, like IQ. When the average white kid scores 180 points higher than the average black kid on the test (which is about what the current difference is), the response is to either say that the test is racist (it's not) or that it is indicative of a problem in our system. At a minimum, it's viewed as being unfair. But the test correlates at least as strongly with IQ as race. IQ is just as indelible as race is, but we don't see a problem when the average kid with a 130 IQ scores a 1450 (my guess) and the average kid with a 100 scores a 1030.

I'm not arguing that we should accommodate for IQ. I just think we should stop thinking score disparities can always be chalked up to unfairness.

2. The most likely mechanism by which moneyed parents lead to high scores is genes. That's certainly not to say it's the only mechanism. But I would rather have a surgeon's genes than his money if I'm trying to get a good SAT score.

3. I think most of the SAT-race disparity can be explained by the IQ-race disparity. The SAT is not racist. Maybe we have a racist system that doesn't prepare black students as well as white students (I think this is true to an extent, at least when talking in generalities), but the test itself is not racist. However, the test is a pretty decent proxy for IQ, and IQ is not even across races. It is not a coincidence that Asians beat whites who beat black on both the IQ and the SAT. I know that's a controversial view, but its unpleasantness doesn't make it false.

Full disclosure: I run an SAT prep company and am about as liberal as it gets.

Why not go the Opposite way, Reward Children of Parents who stay together, and punish children of parents who don't, So many Divorces, as well as (Usually Men) abandoning their girlfriends when they find she is present, This would encourage people to stay together as the parents know that by not staying together will hurt their kids chances of getting into College.

Reward Children who come from LOW Crime Neighborhoods and punish Children who come from HIGH crime neighborhoods, this would make it a competition between neighborhoods (Like a team) to see which neighborhood can have the LEAST crime, so people would know if they do a crime, not only do they risk going to jail, but it would also hurt the Children of that community's chances of getting into College (It would be extra pressure NOT to do crime)

Basically I am saying reward keeping the family intact, reward responsibility, reward NOT doing crime, basically reward Neighborhoods, Families and Children for doing things right.

good info to have wrote:

I like this new metric. Kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds are way more likely to have personal issues that interfere with school. This score will help schools reject those kids outright instead of accepting them only to find that they need to take a leave of absence every time a parent gets sick.

I'm gonna have my kid claim to be an American Indian and we'll get a P.O. Box on a Rez, cuz I have high cheek bones. Stole that idea from presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Then He'll get into Stanford.

This has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever presented on this forum.

Reality is funnier than fantasy sometimes. First participation trophies, now this.

Well, some people do not believe in personal responsibility. So they want to punish people for things they cannot control, like what kind of parents they have or where they were born.