SAT "adversity" adjustment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Then that middle/UMC applicant needs to write about the abuse in his/her essay. Disclosure of this information also adds context to the application.

+1 They are still better off than the poor kid who was abused.

I beg to differ. No kid should be abused and it's not any worse for a poor kid than a rich kid. The damage is the same because it leads to self destruction no matter your privilege.

Rich kids are usually under a lot more psychological manipulation from the parent(s) to keep up appearances. If the kid doesn't put on a happy face all hell breaks loose behind closed doors.

When a poor kid goes off the rails it's way more common for the "societal safety net" (school, social workers, police, foster care, etc) to step in.

Abuse is abuse.

I agree abuse is abuse but if you think psychological pressure exerted by a queen bee mom on a prep school kid can compare to having a friend shot over spring break or getting jumped in your own alley for trying to avoid joining a gang or working a night job while going to school just to get food (etcetcetc), you are blind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the colleges are willing to dumb down their curriculum for kids who aren’t prepared? Or they just pass them through to graduation? I don’t get how this helps anyone.

Well, it doesn't have to work that way. They could still set benchmarks and if there are two equally qualified students, look at adversity scores to determine admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not good news for Asians.

Not necessarily- it will help low income Asians who are often overlooked like Vietnamese/ Cambodian immigrants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not good news for Asians.

Not necessarily- it will help low income Asians who are often overlooked like Vietnamese/ Cambodian immigrants

Not good on the whole.

[Anonymous]

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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.

So kids from the same high school get different adversity scores?

For schools like to TJ and Blair, you are going to get a range of scores.

No you aren’t. TJ is less than 2% FARMS. Less than 2% AA. Less than 2% Hispanic. It pulls from McLean, Oakton and the nicer parts of Herndon, Reston and Chantilly. 90% of the student body is solidly UMC. TJ admissions is pure merit, based on a test. No social engineering or 1st gen or URM bump. Most of the parents have graduate degrees and work in tech fields. It pull from multiple parts of the county. But they are all relatively affluent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous [/quote wrote:


it’s not a quandary at all, much less an interesting one. colleges are places where smart kids are put one the road to expertise. that’s how the rest of the world sees it. only in the USA colleges are country clubs looking for “leaders”. this is the root of all problems.

so-called disadvantaged kids don’t have the background to benefit from the level of expertise offered at the very best universities. if you struggle with algebra you don’t need a field’s medalist to teach you, In fact it’s a waste, a major misallocation of resources. again nothing new here, this is how the rest of the world sees it. only in the USA it’s ok to make billions on some stupid app but omg semi-literate kids must shepherded into the best schools because inequality!

Basically, yes. Kids and their families from poverty stricken/ disadvantaged areas can still take initiative to be well educated and get good SAT scores and shoot for top colleges... and do well at them. It makes no sense to just across the board try to make these schools accessible to anyone and everyone and make it a “level playing field” for “diversity” purposes. We’re going backwards here folks. Making kids feel that they aren’t smart enough or ambitious enough as the rich kids from good areas so we need to give them a boost/head start. It’s not doing them any favors. More victim entitled mentality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the colleges are willing to dumb down their curriculum for kids who aren’t prepared? Or they just pass them through to graduation? I don’t get how this helps anyone.

Well, it doesn't have to work that way. They could still set benchmarks and if there are two equally qualified students, look at adversity scores to determine admissions.

We all know this is not the way it works

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The SAT and College Board in general is the great undiscovered scam on the American educational system. This is an interesting idea, but I don't trust them to have thought it through or have the professional capacity to execute this in the appropriate way, if there is one. Plus colleges already look at context. And what will it mean for magnet program kids?
Kahn academy has partnered with the College Board to offer free college prep and this may be the reason that the last two years of SAT scores are out of sync with previous, requiring down-curving perfectly good performance. Word has it they have made recent changes to the SAT without the proper consultation of psychometricians and the recent rounds of testing are unreliable. The article says College Board will send the adversity score to colleges but not tell the family what score they are sending. Is that legal?

I meant to add that I think the Kahn academy prep is great and does a lot to level the playing field as far as making prep available to those who can't or don't want to spend on expensive private prep. But it may be a reason that they are resorting to downcurving the test as the only way to get separation on the now dumbed-down test. Who would take an instrument and deliberately make it less precise??

It is KHAN ACADEMY - run by a Muslim Bangladeshi Immigrant - SALMAN KHAN!

Calling it "Kahn" makes it look like some White Jewish dude came up with it. What a blatant attempt of cultural appropriation. Give credit to the person who has made this site possible. How f**king ignorent and racists are you?

So, I have ADHD and difficulty with spelling and proofing. It could be that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McLean kid applying for college: mommmmm, what adversity have I faced?
Mom: our house was built in the late 90s and is just 4,000 square feet.

Don’t embarrass yourself, kids from Herndon and Chantilly can ask the same question. You sound almost jealous of people who live in McLean.

[Anonymous]

Simple solution: Parents let colleges know your kid won't be applying there if they use the College Board adversity score....There go their acceptance rates.

Colleges already factor in some measures of adversity, even subjectively, but I'd rather that than a creepy/problematic nationalized adversity score (let's face it, CB is essentially a monopoly on education.) Or maybe there is a way to request they don't use it on your application. Imagine on the short response "Is there anything else you'd like to tell us that isn't reflected in your application?" "I think my adversity score is all wrong....wait, I don't actually know what it is...but it's not fair."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SAT and College Board in general is the great undiscovered scam on the American educational system. This is an interesting idea, but I don't trust them to have thought it through or have the professional capacity to execute this in the appropriate way, if there is one. Plus colleges already look at context. And what will it mean for magnet program kids?
Kahn academy has partnered with the College Board to offer free college prep and this may be the reason that the last two years of SAT scores are out of sync with previous, requiring down-curving perfectly good performance. Word has it they have made recent changes to the SAT without the proper consultation of psychometricians and the recent rounds of testing are unreliable. The article says College Board will send the adversity score to colleges but not tell the family what score they are sending. Is that legal?

I meant to add that I think the Kahn academy prep is great and does a lot to level the playing field as far as making prep available to those who can't or don't want to spend on expensive private prep. But it may be a reason that they are resorting to downcurving the test as the only way to get separation on the now dumbed-down test. Who would take an instrument and deliberately make it less precise??

It is KHAN ACADEMY - run by a Muslim Bangladeshi Immigrant - SALMAN KHAN!

Calling it "Kahn" makes it look like some White Jewish dude came up with it. What a blatant attempt of cultural appropriation. Give credit to the person who has made this site possible. How f**king ignorent and racists are you?

Good lord. Take a pill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about for overcoming special needs?

The ACT actually did this last year didn't they. I believe they came up with some kind of "likehood of succeeding score" and revealed all the special needs students' special needs status. This was their bright idea to help colleges engineer special needs students out of admissions. It's nice that adversity is cool now but coming from a generation where you didn't reveal adversity it still seems risky.

[Anonymous]

Ignore the bolded Khan Academy troll post.

[Anonymous]

Ho boy. If you ever wanted to incentivize the appearance of disadvantage, here it is. Watch as parents rush to their department store DNA tests to claim "ancestry" in faraway lands in order to claim allegiance to some oppressed minority. Watch social failings like single-parent households, high crime rates, divorce and abuse become marketable assets. This is disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ho boy. If you ever wanted to incentivize the appearance of disadvantage, here it is. Watch as parents rush to their department store DNA tests to claim "ancestry" in faraway lands in order to claim allegiance to some oppressed minority. Watch social failings like single-parent households, high crime rates, divorce and abuse become marketable assets. This is disgusting.

Exactly. Like Elizabeth Warren (and many others) claiming Native American Ancestry. There is a HUGE advantage to being “disadvantaged” in this country.