SAT "adversity" adjustment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many posters suggesting that this is a bad thing for affluent families? It isn’t. It merely levels the playing field. It’s not a zero-sum game.

No having and unfair advantage is a "bad thing for affluent families".

[Anonymous]

Holistic admissions colleges already factor this stuff in. Now they do it with census tract data, noting whether a high school is Title 1/how many students qualify for free or reduced meals.

SAT is doing this to make it easier for colleges - who won't have to compute this on their own - and try to make themselves indispensable to an admissions offices.

[Anonymous]

That's a terrible idea, because being educated in a wealthy district does not entirely cancel out physical, mental, or family issues that the student can struggle with.

Example: we live in a wealthy area and my son has learning disabilities. If we disclose his learning disabilities, it will hurt his college application. It's not fair that he should get an additional ding just because of his address.

Plus, we're Asian. Another ding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many posters suggesting that this is a bad thing for affluent families? It isn’t. It merely levels the playing field. It’s not a zero-sum game.

I'm not sure what I think about it, but the concern is that it has the potential to devalue a performance-based assessment of ability by factors that a student may have no control over (and that can start to look discriminatory). It's weird that the College Board is offering an index that undermines the meaning and value of its own product. And it kind of is a zero-sum game. There are only so many spots at any one college. My guess is that colleges will ignore this adjustment index.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic admissions colleges already factor this stuff in. Now they do it with census tract data, noting whether a high school is Title 1/how many students qualify for free or reduced meals.

SAT is doing this to make it easier for colleges - who won't have to compute this on their own - and try to make themselves indispensable to an admissions offices.

I believe it is really a defensive move by College Board so they don't get completely sidelined by the SAT-optional movement. If they are able to offer these social adversity scores together with SAT, then the admissions offices won't need to or won't be allowed to just ignore SAT scores because the usual SAT-optional constituency (i.e. disadvantaged students and their families) will see the SAT as an attractive test to submit so they can get the "extra points" in admissions compared to high-scoring advantaged populations but still show that they are better than the next student in their own classroom. It is a way to make the SAT less irrelevant to college admissions offices. Notice they are using both school-based geographic factors as well as student-specific factors so that colleges will have to subscribe and encourage all students to continue to take the SAT. I would say it is a pretty good business strategy for the college board. Although, I am sure at some point after enough people sue them they will have to release these scores to the students themselves, otherwise, students will just take the ACT instead and you will only have poor students taking the SAT and most of the advantaged middle and upper middle class students will take the ACT.

[Anonymous]

The adversity score is on a scale of 1-100, and takes into account the following:

Neighborhood environment:
Crime rate
Poverty rate
Housing value
Vacancy rate

Family environment:
Median income
Single parent
Education level
ESL

High school environment:
Undermatching
Curricular rigor
Free lunch rate
AP opportunity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, can we please make more magnet spots and put them in the worst performing schools, please? There has to be SOME benefit to normal people from all the social engineering.

Maybe not. FCPS AAP (competitive entry) and to some extent IB were designed to do exactly this. If the school is bad enough. Kids won’t opt in and will stay with affluent peers. And you end up with AAP LLIV and FCPS Eastern County IBs, which are a disaster.

If the school is okay bit not great, you end up with a school within a school, with some kids running circles around everyone else. It does nothing to being the bottom up, although it does stabilize the school ranking. Magnet kids are segregated.

I have a kids who went through an affluent LLIV AAP to AAP Center MS, and one to TJ, one pupil placed for IB (one of the three good IB schools). My kids have gotten an excellent education. I saw nothing in the AAP Center or IB magnet that made me think the non-magnet kids were getting any benefit. To some extent, I think it hurt, because the magnet kids took opportunities from the non-magnet kids, since academic teams can only have so many kids. And it made them feel second class.

Now, I do think FCPS should add a Western County TJ. And consolidate into a centrally located, competitive entry IB magnet. As long as a kid can pass the entrance exam and keep up with the pace (which is brutal), we should be giving a TJ education to every kid we can. And a top notch IB education. And a fine arts magnet education. With busing. And without respect to which school they are zoned for. If the kid has the talent and drive, we should be looking for ways to create a slot for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many posters suggesting that this is a bad thing for affluent families? It isn’t. It merely levels the playing field. It’s not a zero-sum game.

College admissions are the definition of a zero sum game. Only X number of kids get offers to any given college. Your kid getting an offer means some other kid won’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic admissions colleges already factor this stuff in. Now they do it with census tract data, noting whether a high school is Title 1/how many students qualify for free or reduced meals.

SAT is doing this to make it easier for colleges - who won't have to compute this on their own - and try to make themselves indispensable to an admissions offices.

This was what a I was thinking. Harvard and Williams and Rice and Oberlin will still “craft a class”. And already actively seek to admit disadvantage kids by meeting 100% of need and engaging in Quetbridge and considering URM and first gen. But huge state Us want to make admissions easier than having to consider and weigh these external factors.

My first though is this hurts affluent URM kids. If you are AA and dad is a doctor and you live in a wealthy suburb and have a great education, the sky is the limit because you get lumped in with inner city kids on diversity admissions. This makes that harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic admissions colleges already factor this stuff in. Now they do it with census tract data, noting whether a high school is Title 1/how many students qualify for free or reduced meals.

SAT is doing this to make it easier for colleges - who won't have to compute this on their own - and try to make themselves indispensable to an admissions offices.

I believe it is really a defensive move by College Board so they don't get completely sidelined by the SAT-optional movement. If they are able to offer these social adversity scores together with SAT, then the admissions offices won't need to or won't be allowed to just ignore SAT scores because the usual SAT-optional constituency (i.e. disadvantaged students and their families) will see the SAT as an attractive test to submit so they can get the "extra points" in admissions compared to high-scoring advantaged populations but still show that they are better than the next student in their own classroom. It is a way to make the SAT less irrelevant to college admissions offices. Notice they are using both school-based geographic factors as well as student-specific factors so that colleges will have to subscribe and encourage all students to continue to take the SAT. I would say it is a pretty good business strategy for the college board. Although, I am sure at some point after enough people sue them they will have to release these scores to the students themselves, otherwise, students will just take the ACT instead and you will only have poor students taking the SAT and most of the advantaged middle and upper middle class students will take the ACT.

Bing. Bing. Bing.

I see this as moving kids over to the ACT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
That's a terrible idea, because being educated in a wealthy district does not entirely cancel out physical, mental, or family issues that the student can struggle with.

Example: we live in a wealthy area and my son has learning disabilities. If we disclose his learning disabilities, it will hurt his college application. It's not fair that he should get an additional ding just because of his address.

Plus, we're Asian. Another ding.

You can always move, both your home and school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The adversity score is on a scale of 1-100, and takes into account the following:

Neighborhood environment:
Crime rate
Poverty rate
Housing value
Vacancy rate

Family environment:
Median income
Single parent
Education level
ESL

High school environment:
Undermatching
Curricular rigor
Free lunch rate
AP opportunity

Is this for the school address or the student's address? I'm thinking about Wilson for example; it's in a wealthy part of town but serves a lot of economically disadvantaged students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holistic admissions colleges already factor this stuff in. Now they do it with census tract data, noting whether a high school is Title 1/how many students qualify for free or reduced meals.

SAT is doing this to make it easier for colleges - who won't have to compute this on their own - and try to make themselves indispensable to an admissions offices.

I believe it is really a defensive move by College Board so they don't get completely sidelined by the SAT-optional movement. If they are able to offer these social adversity scores together with SAT, then the admissions offices won't need to or won't be allowed to just ignore SAT scores because the usual SAT-optional constituency (i.e. disadvantaged students and their families) will see the SAT as an attractive test to submit so they can get the "extra points" in admissions compared to high-scoring advantaged populations but still show that they are better than the next student in their own classroom. It is a way to make the SAT less irrelevant to college admissions offices. Notice they are using both school-based geographic factors as well as student-specific factors so that colleges will have to subscribe and encourage all students to continue to take the SAT. I would say it is a pretty good business strategy for the college board. Although, I am sure at some point after enough people sue them they will have to release these scores to the students themselves, otherwise, students will just take the ACT instead and you will only have poor students taking the SAT and most of the advantaged middle and upper middle class students will take the ACT.

Bing. Bing. Bing.

I see this as moving kids over to the ACT

I just read an article that says that the ACT is working on a similar index. There is no escaping this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The adversity score is on a scale of 1-100, and takes into account the following:

Neighborhood environment:
Crime rate
Poverty rate
Housing value
Vacancy rate

Family environment:
Median income
Single parent
Education level
ESL

High school environment:
Undermatching
Curricular rigor
Free lunch rate
AP opportunity

Is this for the school address or the student's address? I'm thinking about Wilson for example; it's in a wealthy part of town but serves a lot of economically disadvantaged students.

The index will measure both the home and school addresses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Bing. Bing. Bing.

I see this as moving kids over to the ACT

I just read an article that says that the ACT is working on a similar index. There is no escaping this.

Then I think the streaming will happen by college major. i.e. the diversity/adversity admits will self-sort in college, and I don't think the top-brand colleges will have anything close to a clean brand any more