The reaction to the SAT “adversity score” element on this board is telling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all remind me of the anonymous responses that you see at the bottom of a Fox News article, where people show their true colors. Shameful.

People on both sides of the adversity line are having negative reactions to the plan, not to the idea of helping kids facing adversity; there is not shame in discussing the flaws and potential drawbacks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But. It’s. Already. Happening.

It’s called data mining. Admissions offices have done it for at least a decade. You just didn’t know about it. And now they are outsourcing that work to the College Board.

And the CB is really slipshod. For example, they screwed up the International test whose scores were just released, and the curve was -30 for 1 missed math, -40 for one missed Language. Happy 1530 with 2 missed. Last June’s US SAT also had a bad curve. Tested get leaked all the time. They screw up administrations all the time. I don’t trust the college board to do this well. I trust them to do it cheap and quick. There are a lot of ways to massage the system, starting with “accidentally misbubbling” parents marital status and education and ESL status.


It’s different when different colleges look for different things, and at different data. Here, the score follows my kid to every single college. And I don’t get to know what it is or correct it if it is wrong.

Pass.

So much data your kid already discloses tells the colleges this stuff.. If your kid goes to a ‘good’ public high school with a low percentage of Title 1 students and a high percentage going to 4-year colleges (disclosed on the school profile your counselor provides to every college - without your seeing it) they know you have high SES and low levels of social and economic adversity. If parents have college degrees that sends a signal. If you are not applying for financial aid - you’re sending a similar signal.

I’m not sure I trust a university work study kid entering data into whatever homegrown or commercially available database to do this either. But the vast majority of students admitted and going to college have no SES adversity factors.

College Board is trying to put the data vendors out of business. But the market for this information already exists and will continue even if the CB didn’t proceed.

What this tells me is that people hate the College Board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was talking about this with my husband and he just shrugged his shoulders and reminded me that when the time comes, he'll pull every connection he has to get our kids good internships and first jobs. And he has a lot of connections. He does people a lot of favors in order for them to return the favor someday.

At the end of the day, that's what matters most. More even than where you went to college or how you did there.

Unless you don't have a sugar daddy. Then where you went and how you did there matters a whole lot. And that is the case for 95% of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't see potential issues with this? It's all sunshine and roses? Students whose true SES level is below average for their high school/zip code will have a score that does not reflect their reality.

And what of need blind admission? Is it a joke? Colleges would love to find Pell eligible applicants. Why engage in this inaccurate "score" charade and use the info from the financial aid docs?

What this means is that you are sitting on a lot of equity in your house or you inherited resources. Otherwise how can you afford to live in a neighborhood with a median housing cost of $1 mm while making $75K? Your child will be ok no matter what. The incremental salary increase from going to a top 10 school vs. A top 50 school for your child is insignificant. If you are white and middle class, your child will still have the highest probability to be hired into a good job. Your child will also inherit resources from you.
This action will help truly poor, disadvantaged kids to have a shot at a better life. They will still have to face resource disadvantages all their lives, especially if they are minorities. Nobody will be there for them to give them $50K for downpayment for a house, help them with a car etc. This is just for helping them to have a better start, not get ahead of you. It's better for the society overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all remind me of the anonymous responses that you see at the bottom of a Fox News article, where people show their true colors. Shameful.

People on both sides of the adversity line are having negative reactions to the plan, not to the idea of helping kids facing adversity; there is not shame in discussing the flaws and potential drawbacks.

You know that’s not what I’m talking about. Of course, every new thing has advantages and disadvantages. The comments that I’m referring to are the ones complaining how this hurts their privileged kids. It doesn’t.

I’m not even going to tell you how bad my upbringing was. I certainly was not privileged. But my kids are. And guess what? They all got into fine colleges despite being rich and in the DMV! Those pesky poor brown kids did not get in their way at all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was talking about this with my husband and he just shrugged his shoulders and reminded me that when the time comes, he'll pull every connection he has to get our kids good internships and first jobs. And he has a lot of connections. He does people a lot of favors in order for them to return the favor someday.

At the end of the day, that's what matters most. More even than where you went to college or how you did there.

Unless you don't have a sugar daddy. Then where you went and how you did there matters a whole lot. And that is the case for 95% of students.

What does this mean?

A lot of people get their first jobs through connections (maybe even most?). This can't be news to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was talking about this with my husband and he just shrugged his shoulders and reminded me that when the time comes, he'll pull every connection he has to get our kids good internships and first jobs. And he has a lot of connections. He does people a lot of favors in order for them to return the favor someday.

At the end of the day, that's what matters most. More even than where you went to college or how you did there.

Unless you don't have a sugar daddy. Then where you went and how you did there matters a whole lot. And that is the case for 95% of students.

What does this mean?

A lot of people get their first jobs through connections (maybe even most?). This can't be news to you.

None of my kids got their first jobs through connections. None of them. They did well in school, went to college, and then applied for and got jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they really want to use SES, why not be accurate about it by doing away with need-blind. The adversity score is feel-good pretending.

Fewer than 50 university actually do need blind admissions.

Then for the 2950 need -aware colleges, what is the point of having a (potentially inaccurate) SES score, if they can consider the personal data already?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But. It’s. Already. Happening.

It’s called data mining. Admissions offices have done it for at least a decade. You just didn’t know about it. And now they are outsourcing that work to the College Board.

And the CB is really slipshod. For example, they screwed up the International test whose scores were just released, and the curve was -30 for 1 missed math, -40 for one missed Language. Happy 1530 with 2 missed. Last June’s US SAT also had a bad curve. Tested get leaked all the time. They screw up administrations all the time. I don’t trust the college board to do this well. I trust them to do it cheap and quick. There are a lot of ways to massage the system, starting with “accidentally misbubbling” parents marital status and education and ESL status.


It’s different when different colleges look for different things, and at different data. Here, the score follows my kid to every single college. And I don’t get to know what it is or correct it if it is wrong.

Pass.

So much data your kid already discloses tells the colleges this stuff.. If your kid goes to a ‘good’ public high school with a low percentage of Title 1 students and a high percentage going to 4-year colleges (disclosed on the school profile your counselor provides to every college - without your seeing it) they know you have high SES and low levels of social and economic adversity. If parents have college degrees that sends a signal. If you are not applying for financial aid - you’re sending a similar signal.

I’m not sure I trust a university work study kid entering data into whatever homegrown or commercially available database to do this either. But the vast majority of students admitted and going to college have no SES adversity factors.

College Board is trying to put the data vendors out of business. But the market for this information already exists and will continue even if the CB didn’t proceed.

What this tells me is that people hate the College Board.

True. The College Board screws up and isn’t held accountable.

I’m fine with a college knowing and considering most of the underlying data being provided. I do not trust the college board to compile it in a meaningful way without errors. And reducing my kids entire life to a number seems ridiculous.

I don’t mind colleges saying, about my kid 1520– that’s impressive. But, this kid went to a top public school in the DMV and has an affluent, educated family, so that’s probably the top of what he can achieve. I even understand them saying that the candidate with a 1470 from a first gem, poor family, and a crappy school is a better admit than my kid. Kid 2 likely has had to do more, without much support to get to where they are. And there is context there.

I worry about the formula that says 1520 AI 10 < 1470 AI 50. Especially when AI 50 is a kid whose house cost the same as ours and who fami,y has the same education and income as ours, but they have the biggest, newest house in a crappy neighborhood feeding to Mt. Vernon, and we have a small townhouse in a neighborhood full of mansions feeding to McLean. Kid 2 hasn’t had more adversity than my kid.

This formula has the potential to assign the same score a kid from an educated, affluent family who bought a lot $750,000 house in a crappy neighborhood feeding to Mt. Vernon and a kid with a 1st gen family making $60,000 with both parents working their butts off and squeezed into a rented apartment near an affluent neighborhoods feeding to Chantilly. And the don’t face the same adversity. I’m okay with the first gen kid getting a boost— but they already do. I’m not okay with can buy a $750,000 house chooses Mt. Vernon family getting the same boost.

[Anonymous]

Of course colleges already consider the high school context, but for the public, it might be interesting to have high schools ranked by their portion of the adversity score, excluding the other factors from the score. Like an estimate of how well they teach to the test, I suppose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was talking about this with my husband and he just shrugged his shoulders and reminded me that when the time comes, he'll pull every connection he has to get our kids good internships and first jobs. And he has a lot of connections. He does people a lot of favors in order for them to return the favor someday.

At the end of the day, that's what matters most. More even than where you went to college or how you did there.

This is awful. The entitlement, the lack of focus on merit ... the system is deeply rigged and those of us without privileges and connections are still out of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This formula has the potential to assign the same score a kid from an educated, affluent family who bought a lot $750,000 house in a crappy neighborhood feeding to Mt. Vernon and a kid with a 1st gen family making $60,000 with both parents working their butts off and squeezed into a rented apartment near an affluent neighborhoods feeding to Chantilly. And the don’t face the same adversity. I’m okay with the first gen kid getting a boost— but they already do. I’m not okay with can buy a $750,000 house chooses Mt. Vernon family getting the same boost.

The low income family who rents near an affluent neighborhood will have an inaccurate score that hurts them.

[Anonymous]

I would really prefer colleges give a bump for SES status instead of race so I am not opposed to this I have three main concerns:
1. Are some colleges using this in addition to racial preferences? That just makes it so much harder for a high achieving UMC Asian or white student who is not a legacy or a recruited athlete
2. How accurate is the College Board’s methodology?
3. How are they using and sharing my child’s personal information? What else might my child’s adversity score be used for? How do I know if my child’s score is accurate? My child has a lot of personal control over how well he does in school or on a test (and fwiw we spent a grand total of $15 for a College Board SAT book). He doesn’t have control over his race or his adversity score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was talking about this with my husband and he just shrugged his shoulders and reminded me that when the time comes, he'll pull every connection he has to get our kids good internships and first jobs. And he has a lot of connections. He does people a lot of favors in order for them to return the favor someday.

At the end of the day, that's what matters most. More even than where you went to college or how you did there.

Unless you don't have a sugar daddy. Then where you went and how you did there matters a whole lot. And that is the case for 95% of students.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This formula has the potential to assign the same score a kid from an educated, affluent family who bought a lot $750,000 house in a crappy neighborhood feeding to Mt. Vernon and a kid with a 1st gen family making $60,000 with both parents working their butts off and squeezed into a rented apartment near an affluent neighborhoods feeding to Chantilly. And the don’t face the same adversity. I’m okay with the first gen kid getting a boost— but they already do. I’m not okay with can buy a $750,000 house chooses Mt. Vernon family getting the same boost.

The low income family who rents near an affluent neighborhood will have an inaccurate score that hurts them.[/quote]

+1

Exactly this.