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SAT to Give Students ‘Adversity Score’ to Capture Social and Economic Background
- Thread starter OtherWorldly
- Start date
I don't agree that students shouldn't be able to see the scores.
What other metrics does it include?
Family assets and income, parents educational history, nation of origin, etc and other factors should be included. They all contribute to a child's socioeconomic privilege.
What other metrics does it include?
Family assets and income, parents educational history, nation of origin, etc and other factors should be included. They all contribute to a child's socioeconomic privilege.
This seems like a great idea if done correctly.
It's not even new, really. Way back in the late 90s, that's basically what my college did with me. My SAT score was a little low for my university, but I had the highest SAT score in my entire county where I lived. So my college was like, "Yeah, we get it."
It's not even new, really. Way back in the late 90s, that's basically what my college did with me. My SAT score was a little low for my university, but I had the highest SAT score in my entire county where I lived. So my college was like, "Yeah, we get it."
If they are doing this, I hope they use race/ethnic-specific poverty levels as it's far more accurate than the whole population poverty levels.
Tons of examples of what I'm getting at, but think of poverty levels for white communities compared to black communities in a segregated town.
Interesting idea, but how they compute these scores could be open to a lot of problems. I wonder how oversight would work?
e.g. if they account for certain disadvantages but don't account for others it would be doubly unfair to people whose disadvantages aren't covered.
e.g. if they account for certain disadvantages but don't account for others it would be doubly unfair to people whose disadvantages aren't covered.
I'm one of the most adversest people I know. Does this mean the government will pay off my student loans?
OP
OP
Yes there is an image in the link where it captures things like single parent, economic conditions of neighbourhood etc
Can't access it because I don't pay for WSJ
They should also include factors like family size and if any members in the parent/child unit are LGBTQ. LGBTQ parents either have to adopt or spend dozens of thousands of dollars to IVF procreate, not to mention they often face discrimination in their career and communities so it makes a difference in the adversity faced in a family unit
So the test is going to rebalance based on black-box factors students can't see
and the college is going to rebalance on factors they won't report
Maybe just give up on standardized tests entirely.
and the college is going to rebalance on factors they won't report
Maybe just give up on standardized tests entirely.
Yeah. Just end them.
The college application industry is good at gaming this stuff as Operation Varsity Blues showed.
This. I guess it's in part to obfuscate errors and prevent reverse engineering so you can game it.
But that said big schools have admissions staff that do this research already. I think they are just making a uniform one across the whole US that colleges can chooses to use or ignore.
1. They don't want people gaming the system
2. They don't want to be scrutinized for any flaws I the system
While I applaud the college board for doing something progressive at all, I feel like this will be one of those band-aid fixes that lets state and local lawmakers continue to do nothing about the actual problem which is lack of funding and resources for many public schools. Some kind of after-the-fact fix just reads as an attempt to redirect focus to differences in test scores when these are an effect of a lot of problems that lawmakers are not serious about solving... kind of like how Boston recently hired an ex-Googler to create an algorithm to match kids to schools to create a "fair" bussing system that it turns out only exacerbated the already abysmal segregation problem in Boston's schools, only now the local politicians can shift the blame to a computer.
So you want Universities/Colleges to have entrance exams instead?
I'm of the opinion that standardized scores should be one optional path toward admission among many, such as being able to choose between submitting a standardized test score OR submit class ranking OR doing a personal/virtual interview OR through some other process like a summer high school precollege internship/program at the university. Provide options to students with different disabilities/abilities, strengths and weaknesses to demonstrate to admission officers their potential besides one number on a paper
to protect students from predatory education debt when they don't realistically have a shot at succeeding in whatever program they are interested in, let alone forging a successful career later on down the same path.
OP
OP
For those who can't access paywall:
Factors :
Neighbourhood
Factors :
Neighbourhood
- Crime rate
- Poverty rate
- Housing values
- Vacancy rate
- Median income
- Single parent
- Education level
- ESL
- Under matching
- Curricular rigor
- Free lunch rate
- AP opportunity
American Essay tests were created explicitly to discriminate against an overachieving minority.
Giving context to the scores is good. It doesnt mean the scores arent worth anything.
I feel like it's bad PR for this to be immediately labeled by race on a chart... when it's apparently determined by much more than race.
Definitely number 1. Once kids start comparing notes on College Board, then people will start thinking of ways to abuse the system.
it's a smart idea, but the parents who are the loudest and most persistent probably have kids with the lowest score so I doubt this will last
Those scores will get out eventually, and the games will begin.
My first thought was actually wondering what would come first: the lawsuit from Asian parents or the mad rush to get their kids into schools in undesirable (but not too undesireable) neighborhoods.
OP
OP
There are more charts than just race but in the article it was the only one that was the image. Rest was graphics based and i couldn't copy paste
The American system is already quite decentralized on standardized tests compared to most other countries. Even the fact that you send in personal essays and information about extracurriculars is really remarkable.
Not to mention that interviews, summer work etc. is already considered.
In Turkey, there's literally just a 2-step national entrance exam that gives you a score and a ranking and that's what you use to pick schools. It's fucking terrible. The American system is much better.
On one hand this seems great for people who come from these backgrounds, on the other hand it just seems like a bandaid than a solution for the actual roots of the problem.
Also how do they want to make sure the students who got bonus points are even up to the task after passing?
Also how do they want to make sure the students who got bonus points are even up to the task after passing?
The devil will definitely be in the details. How they compute the score will make or break this idea
They aren't optional, but no school solely, or even primarily, looks at SAT test scores. There's a reason apps ask for tons of other, non-quantitative supplementary material
Why would the SAT be in charge of that? Whatever school they get into should be the one with the resources to help them as they'll be students at that school
They aren't optional, but no school solely, or even primarily, looks at SAT test scores. There's a reason apps ask for tons of other, non-quantitative supplementary material
Accidentally creating an incentive for integration bussing would sure be something.
Well it's both. People are going to complain about the system as soon as any flaws are exposed. I expect lawsuits eventually
Ok this is good. I just argue there should be more based off of more factors that I know contribute to adversity:
- LGBTQ parents/children
- First generation American or not
- Family size compared to family income
- Incarcerated parent(s) or not
- Foster/orphan status or not
- Student employment (FT/PT/not employed)
- Student disability status (not sure if this is legal, but it definitely contributes to adversity in academic performance)
I guess no metric can be perfect.
Yeah my feeling is that, in general, the things they're including are good, but given that the College Board is already a weird middleman that inserted itself into the college application process as a purely moneymaking endeavor they're more interested in doing just enough for people to justify continuing to pay out the ass for the test than actually creating a system to help students dealing with adversity.
You're right, I just advocate for increasing more options and putting less mandatory weight on standardized test scores.
This is a problem with graduate school too. The GRE doesn't correlate at all to success in career or academics in graduate school. It's nice that some people score highly to offset their GPA, but the number itself isn't very meaningful. So I'm an advocate of holistic admissions and options.
I think the best metric should be percentile of your neighborood. It's objective enough to not be too abusable, and basically impossible to game ( unless rich people start living in poor areas, at which point though the Average score would go up and it defeat the point).
I think the problem with these is that some of them can go either way
- LGBTQ parents/children
Depending on the neighborhood this could either be of great significance or minimal. I'm assuming they're already taking into account where the person lives
- First generation American or not
Could go either way. Nigerian immigrants are among the most educated groups period, and a number of other immigrant groups were wealthy enough to emigrate so their children being first generation is an advantage in those cases
- Foster/orphan status or not
This would already be captured by the family status section if they have no parents
- Student employment (FT/PT/not employed)
Again, this could be conflated with other things. For instance someone working because they have to is different from someone working to make extra money in an already well off household
But the other ones sound good.
I don't see how this could be gamed anyway. Your school choices are locked based on district. You can't just apply to a school outside your district because you feel like it. If rich people somehow start getting their kids into "worst school districts" that'll only be possible if the districts are redrawn to include those rich people's houses, which will raise the property value of the district, in turn raising the funding their schools receive and will raise the performance of the district. So, it's basically a win win situation even if some people try to "game" the system
I don't think any graduate admissions committee puts much weight on the GRE.. at least for PhD programs
"Mom and Dad: if you could get divorced this year, that would really help me out."
"Also could you rent an apartment in the bad part of town? Thx"
"Also could you rent an apartment in the bad part of town? Thx"
Rich people often have more than one property. Just set your mailing address to a low income rental property in a desired school district. I've seen it done so that a kid could go to a good school outside of their district back when I was in HS.
Yeah my experience was also that it doesn't matter much, more like if you do super poorly it might disqualify you, but if you get a perfect score and your writing sample/research samples are crap it's not gonna help you much
(not that grad school applications do a good job of helping underrepresented students get into school)
I assume they could use sociologists and statistics to examine which parts are significant and design a metric around this LGBTQ theme that captures the significance in some way. I'm not sure. I just know that LGBTQ families face different challenges than hetero families.
I'm not just looking at this through the lens of wealth or assets. Being a first generation American produces adversity outside of financial. It's a culture shock, it's isolating, discrimination is experienced.
I think the parent section probably covers how many legal guardians you have, not what type of guardians you have (if you're a foster child, you may have 1 or 2 legal parents, but that hides the adversity you faced as a foster child)
True, but its probably far more likely that most students don't work unless it is for some purpose. Besides that, working 10, 20, or 40 hours a week makes a big difference in how much time you have to study or SAT prep.
Same.
Will only result in middle class students having even tougher time getting in.
