SAT "adversity" adjustment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found this in 10 second searching: "Family environment will assess what the median income is of where the student's family is from; whether the student is from a single parent household; the educational level of the parents; and whether English is a second language."

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

First, that suggests that SAT takers will have to disclose a lot of personal information, which is stupid. How in the world could the CB know whether that self-reported information is accurate? Why should anyone trust the CB to have accurate information about the economics of the students' neighborhood or anything else.

This whole thing is ill-conceived and astonishingly arrogant.

+1

It's ironic that actual, verified information is included in the financial aid packet that isn't seen by the admissions office (at need-blind colleges).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aside from people’s (understandable) desire to have the most opportunity available to their kids, I think a lot of disagreement on measures like these stems from disagreement about what the purposes of college admission are. Is admission a reward for the best academic performance in high school? Is admission a vehicle for finding the people who will achieve success later in life with the college’s help? Is admission a way to identify people who will become leaders in their communities and train them? Is admission a way to curate a community of students with diverse interests and backgrounds?

These purposes differ by college and often colleges are considering a mix of the above. There is often frustration from students and their parents where they see students with lower stats admitted to a college. But that views college admission as only serving the first purpose. And even then, academic achievement should—in the views of many—be assessed in context, including the resources a student had available to them and the obstacles they faced in achieving success.

+1

To some extent, maybe, but elite schools never want to stop being elite. So they’ll always need a critical mass of kids with top grades and scores.

[Anonymous]

I live in Ganglandia and I think it will give my child some edge.

As it is my kiddo has to score 200-300 points above students of other racial groups to gain admission in college!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in Ganglandia and I think it will give my child some edge.

As it is my kiddo has to score 200-300 points above students of other racial groups to gain admission in college!!

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can not believe how many of you affluent advantaged people are now online rallying against this. Have you no shame? As you no empathy? Have you no understanding? This is not designed to hurt your kids, but to help other kids.

I do have empathy for others but what about my family? I am the only in my family's generation to go to college (local state u while working). I waited to have kids so my spouse and I could be in a better financial position. Because of that my kids can have a better piece of pie than I did but now that pie is getting sent to someone else. I want my kids to have their pie!

Your kids have the pie already! They have a stable home life, parents who are engaged and emotionally/physically present, presumably support in areas where they struggle and enrichment in areas where they excel.

Presumably they don't need to work after school, or babysit younger siblings while you and your partner work a third shift.

They have healthy food and clean water.

They have a veritable pie buffet. Congratulations!

No, you're talking about the basics! I'm talking about moving ahead in life and finally being able to gain access to a higher standard of living including admission to better universities. If my kids continue to do well in school, they will get dinged on admissions because I simply did what I was supposed to do. What's the incentive to do well in this country if your pie that you worked hard for goes to someone else who didn't bother lifting a finger?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/articles/sat-to-give-students-adversity-score-to-capture-social-and-economic-background-11557999000

Wonder how they'll define adversity.

It is hard for me to support it as a "donut hole" parent, but I do recognize that this is appropriate direction given how prep classes routinely up SAT scores by 200-300 points.

Thoughts?

this is a fallacy--I think external studies have that when you use a real SAT for pre and a real SAT for post (not some in-house equivalent amassed from selecting problems from prior tests or creating analogues)prep raised scores on average 30-40 pts (which is not unsubstantial, but not drastic) and that most prep places massaged data in ways to make gains appear far larger than an external assessment would find.

I taught LSAT and SAT Math prep in law school as my side gig for Princeton Review. This is true. Most of the gain then were in math, because verbal is hard to move. Now, reading comp is hard to move, and English sentence, grammar section is less so. Most gains are based on test familiarity, which kids can get without spending thousands of dollars. I was able to move my kids scores 60 points in about 10-15 hours with just the SAT Book of 8 released tests.

So, as an aside, I will save you thousands of dollars.

Have your kid take a released copy. Look at what they missed. How many in each section. Pick their weakest section that isn’t reading comp— the RC score is very hard to move. Your kid has either read their whole life or not. So, look where they can get the most points back with the least effort.

Have your kid work through the SAT Test Book pointers on their worst, no RC section, and do some Kahn Academy on that section.

Have your kid kid retake their worst section only several times using the released tests and really look and understand what they missed and why.

Repeat if you have time and they missed a significant number of questions on their second worst non RC section.

Take another couple full tests in the lead up to the SAT.

That’s all most test prep companies do. And they are less efficient, because they are teaching to a class and do both language and math, which your kid might not need. And they have to pretend RC will move. It won’t.

I think that you are thinking along the lines of a standard SAT test prep course...vs a test prep lifestyle...where they actively spend time working on test prep from 6th grade on up...

If you familiarize yourself with the test on that level, your scores will increase dramatically...

Plus, PP, those are great suggestions, thank you. Khan academy SAT Prep does pretty much what you are suggesting, I believe. And it's free. So that is already leveling the playing field as far as test prep.

It’s more than the actual prep course. Does the child have access to a device to take the Khan course? Does he or she have Internet at home? Or does the child have to go the library to use the Internet? Does the child have a way to get to the library? Does he or she have parents in the house to supervise nightly prep, or do the parents work at night? Does the child work at night? Do the parents know the importance of test prep, and encourage it?

I teach at a low income HS and never once have run into an issue where a kid didn't have internet access at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's to stop a kid from lying about income to College Board? Many kids may not actually even know an accurate answer.

I would tell my child things not to report unless it was mandatory. I don’t want to give my kid a HHI number anyway.

Did you read the article? They are using the median income of your neighborhood, not your family income.

So the poorer families in a neighborhood are screwed then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found this in 10 second searching: "Family environment will assess what the median income is of where the student's family is from; whether the student is from a single parent household; the educational level of the parents; and whether English is a second language."

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

First, that suggests that SAT takers will have to disclose a lot of personal information, which is stupid. How in the world could the CB know whether that self-reported information is accurate? Why should anyone trust the CB to have accurate information about the economics of the students' neighborhood or anything else.

This whole thing is ill-conceived and astonishingly arrogant.

+1

It's ironic that actual, verified information is included in the financial aid packet that isn't seen by the admissions office (at need-blind colleges).

It's not self reported. I posted a link earlier about the research methodology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's to stop a kid from lying about income to College Board? Many kids may not actually even know an accurate answer.

I would tell my child things not to report unless it was mandatory. I don’t want to give my kid a HHI number anyway.

Did you read the article? They are using the median income of your neighborhood, not your family income.

So the poorer families in a neighborhood are screwed then.

Yes, that seems to be true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found this in 10 second searching: "Family environment will assess what the median income is of where the student's family is from; whether the student is from a single parent household; the educational level of the parents; and whether English is a second language."

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

First, that suggests that SAT takers will have to disclose a lot of personal information, which is stupid. How in the world could the CB know whether that self-reported information is accurate? Why should anyone trust the CB to have accurate information about the economics of the students' neighborhood or anything else.

This whole thing is ill-conceived and astonishingly arrogant.

+1

It's ironic that actual, verified information is included in the financial aid packet that isn't seen by the admissions office (at need-blind colleges).

It's not self reported. I posted a link earlier about the research methodology.

That's my point. Actual information about an applicant's SES is available through other means (financial aid forms), but instead this Adversity Score uses average info based on the neighborhood to merely guess at it. Too much potential for inaccuracy.

I hope this doesn't become a published metric in the CDS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can not believe how many of you affluent advantaged people are now online rallying against this. Have you no shame? As you no empathy? Have you no understanding? This is not designed to hurt your kids, but to help other kids.

I do have empathy for others but what about my family? I am the only in my family's generation to go to college (local state u while working). I waited to have kids so my spouse and I could be in a better financial position. Because of that my kids can have a better piece of pie than I did but now that pie is getting sent to someone else. I want my kids to have their pie!

Your kids have the pie already! They have a stable home life, parents who are engaged and emotionally/physically present, presumably support in areas where they struggle and enrichment in areas where they excel.

Presumably they don't need to work after school, or babysit younger siblings while you and your partner work a third shift.

They have healthy food and clean water.

They have a veritable pie buffet. Congratulations!

But how do you know this? Middle and UMC kids could possibly be abused by their stepfathers, have parents who argue non stop, have a mom who went through breast cancer, be bullied mercilessly at school. There is no way that the college board,can determine who is facing adverse situations and who isn't. And quite frankly they are stepping out of their role in even trying to make an attempt to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found this in 10 second searching: "Family environment will assess what the median income is of where the student's family is from; whether the student is from a single parent household; the educational level of the parents; and whether English is a second language."

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

First, that suggests that SAT takers will have to disclose a lot of personal information, which is stupid. How in the world could the CB know whether that self-reported information is accurate? Why should anyone trust the CB to have accurate information about the economics of the students' neighborhood or anything else.

This whole thing is ill-conceived and astonishingly arrogant.

+1

It's ironic that actual, verified information is included in the financial aid packet that isn't seen by the admissions office (at need-blind colleges).

It's not self reported. I posted a link earlier about the research methodology.

That's my point. Actual information about an applicant's SES is available through other means (financial aid forms), but instead this Adversity Score uses average info based on the neighborhood to merely guess at it. Too much potential for inaccuracy.

I hope this doesn't become a published metric in the CDS.

Sorry, my comment was for the PP who said students would have to disclose personal information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's to stop a kid from lying about income to College Board? Many kids may not actually even know an accurate answer.

I would tell my child things not to report unless it was mandatory. I don’t want to give my kid a HHI number anyway.

Did you read the article? They are using the median income of your neighborhood, not your family income.

So the poorer families in a neighborhood are screwed then.

That's true with or without the "adversity adjustment". The richest families are always best off, whether you're at a 40K/year private school or a public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can not believe how many of you affluent advantaged people are now online rallying against this. Have you no shame? As you no empathy? Have you no understanding? This is not designed to hurt your kids, but to help other kids.

I do have empathy for others but what about my family? I am the only in my family's generation to go to college (local state u while working). I waited to have kids so my spouse and I could be in a better financial position. Because of that my kids can have a better piece of pie than I did but now that pie is getting sent to someone else. I want my kids to have their pie!

Your kids have the pie already! They have a stable home life, parents who are engaged and emotionally/physically present, presumably support in areas where they struggle and enrichment in areas where they excel.

Presumably they don't need to work after school, or babysit younger siblings while you and your partner work a third shift.

They have healthy food and clean water.

They have a veritable pie buffet. Congratulations!

But how do you know this? Middle and UMC kids could possibly be abused by their stepfathers, have parents who argue non stop, have a mom who went through breast cancer, be bullied mercilessly at school. There is no way that the college board,can determine who is facing adverse situations and who isn't. And quite frankly they are stepping out of their role in even trying to make an attempt to do so.

The media has named it the adversity score. CB uses the term environmental index, which is limited to SES factors. They are not interested in other forms of adversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, my comment was for the PP who said students would have to disclose personal information.

And therein lies the rub. Without disclosing personal information, the Adversity Score will be rife with inaccuracy for the individual even though averages may seem like they ought to be informative.