SAT "adversity" adjustment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once again, DCUM showing true colors.

High income white and asian people feeling sorry for themselves because little Johnny who has done every activity since the age of two, has never had to work in his life, and has had a tutor for the SAT may not get into a Top 20 school! How sad.

Keep telling yourself that you and your kids have it so bad as compared to a low income family struggling to pay for rent and food let alone health care. Keep telling yourself that your kid with a 1500 is such a genius and the black kid in DC with a 1200 is just going to screw up the whole Ivy League college.

Pathetic. Your kids (and all their AD/ADHD bullshit diversity) will be fine at Boulder, Indiana, Wisconsin, or god forbid American or UMBC.

No one deserves a top 20 spot. My kids have been read to since they were babies, they never had to worry about having enough money to pay for a meal, they have had doctors when they are sick, I have been able to pay for them to get help (mentally) when needed, they had tutors for these stupid standardized tests which do not correlate to success anyway, and they have been free to pursue what they want in terms of EC activities because we don't need them to work to pay for basic needs. This, DCUM folks, is called privilege. They-and most of you posting-are so privileged and yet all you do is whine and complain. All you can see is that your kid might have to go to a school in the Top 50 instead of the Top 20. Get a grip. You are lucky. They are beyond lucky.

And for those who are privileged but have faced true adversity--your kids have support, are resilient and will be fine if they go to Mason instead of UVA. Seriously

All of you need to stop with this "we white rich people are so discriminated against." This whole 'we deserve Ivy Leagues' mentality is pathetic. None of you are moving to low-income neighborhoods. What a joke. You would rather have your kid go to the 2nd tier state school than have to be a minority and go to school with brown kids. And that is fine, but don't act like all of a sudden you are moving from potomac to Southeast.

Ugh-- with all that is going on in the world, it would be really nice if folks on here could acknowledge how good their kids have it.

if this were a good idea everybody else would be doing it. in reality the world laughs as stupid arrogant American shoot themselves in the head for basically no reason at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale was in the pilot program and they have been using it for the past two years. They said it has helped them increase diversity.

So low IQ get in, how does that make the school good

who said low IQ gets in??

IQ is lower for poor

"lower" does not mean low IQ. I think they are still accepting applicants who are talented and have high scores.

actually it kinda does. even 120 will struggle with any kind of rigorous college material.

you think 120 is a "low IQ"? This honestly doesn't matter though - because this is about the SAT -- not an IQ test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't see the problem with this. If I understand it correctly, the adversity adjustment is not going to take anything away from anyone, but simply bump up those in disadvantaged circumstances. I think this country is so screwed up in terms of the haves and the have nots. So many outside of our bubble don't have access to tutors, enrichment, stability, etc. We are very well off and both my kids get tutors when needed. My kid is going to a top 20 school and that's because he scored very high on the ACT and we were able to pay for all sorts of enrichment in his high school career. This is SO not typical in other parts of the country, and these kids should have some sort of an opportunity to break out of that cycle.

The people upset about this are probably the same ones who think that learning disabled kids should not get extra time or that everyone should get extra time. It is just amazing how selfish and heartless people can be.

I feel blessed that my kid will have an amazing college experience, but even if he didn't get into his first choice, he would have been FINE!! That would probably not be the case with these kids with the high adversity scores.

And if you really have a problem with it, just prep for the ACT. It's not like you don't have choices.

By bumping some people up, other people by default are going to be bumped down. And the reason people are upset is because the college board has no way of knowing who has faced adversity in their lives and who hasn't. Simply living in a lower income zip code or even being lower income does not necessarily mean that one is disadvantaged disproportionately. An example would be my own family. We have a HHI of $130,000 which is not low income but is lower than the majority of families that my kids go to school with, because we made the decision that I should stay at home. Our lower HHI should be a disadvantage and in some ways it is. However, we are laser focused about education and enriching our kids (which is why I stayed home in the first place) I would say our family is more education focused than the majority of other families who live near us that have higher incomes. And my kids are pretty much the top students at their school. But the College Board would only see a lower HHI and assume that my kids are actually disadvantaged as compared to the families that make more.

??? That's not how it works. They aren't comparing $130,000 HHI with higher HHI and assigning significant adversity score differences. They know that a family with a HHI of $130,000 is fine. They are looking at lower income families and comparing them to you. Do you think they are also comparing those making $500,000 vs. $1M and giving the $500,000 an adversity score benefit that colleges would care about?

My point is that it is difficult for an outsider to determine who faces more adversity than others. You can't no what factors come into play in someone's life that make them more disadvantaged than others and not even income tells you everything. Most people would consider a kid come from a family with an income of $130,000 to be more disadvantaged than a kid coming from a family making $300,000. But in our case, I would not consider my kids to be disadvantaged at all because even though they have less money, they have had a sahm who has basically made a career out of raising them to be well educated, and they are performing higher than most of their peers who come from much more affluent families. This is the problem with solely using income to determine who is advantaged or not. There are so many other factors that could play into it (like the advantage of having an invested sahm) that it is basically impossible for the college board or anyone else to try to gauge who is more advantaged than others and try to put a score to it.

Again, no one is considering a child from a family with a HHI of $130,000 more disadvantaged than people making more money. They might think your kid likely has fewer luxuries, but not those that would arise to adversity. Someone from a family making $50,000 would likely have fewer benefits that actually would result in adversity that could significantly impact academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once again, DCUM showing true colors.

High income white and asian people feeling sorry for themselves because little Johnny who has done every activity since the age of two, has never had to work in his life, and has had a tutor for the SAT may not get into a Top 20 school! How sad.

Keep telling yourself that you and your kids have it so bad as compared to a low income family struggling to pay for rent and food let alone health care. Keep telling yourself that your kid with a 1500 is such a genius and the black kid in DC with a 1200 is just going to screw up the whole Ivy League college.

Pathetic. Your kids (and all their AD/ADHD bullshit diversity) will be fine at Boulder, Indiana, Wisconsin, or god forbid American or UMBC.

No one deserves a top 20 spot. My kids have been read to since they were babies, they never had to worry about having enough money to pay for a meal, they have had doctors when they are sick, I have been able to pay for them to get help (mentally) when needed, they had tutors for these stupid standardized tests which do not correlate to success anyway, and they have been free to pursue what they want in terms of EC activities because we don't need them to work to pay for basic needs. This, DCUM folks, is called privilege. They-and most of you posting-are so privileged and yet all you do is whine and complain. All you can see is that your kid might have to go to a school in the Top 50 instead of the Top 20. Get a grip. You are lucky. They are beyond lucky.

And for those who are privileged but have faced true adversity--your kids have support, are resilient and will be fine if they go to Mason instead of UVA. Seriously

All of you need to stop with this "we white rich people are so discriminated against." This whole 'we deserve Ivy Leagues' mentality is pathetic. None of you are moving to low-income neighborhoods. What a joke. You would rather have your kid go to the 2nd tier state school than have to be a minority and go to school with brown kids. And that is fine, but don't act like all of a sudden you are moving from potomac to Southeast.

Ugh-- with all that is going on in the world, it would be really nice if folks on here could acknowledge how good their kids have it.

Not all UMC people are spending money on tutors. Some would rather spend it on luxury cars. Not all UMC families have their kids in travel sports. Some don't want to give up their Saturdays. Some UMC people put TV's in their kids rooms so they don't have to be annoyed by them. Not all UMC kids have parents who are particularly involved or invested in their education. You along with the College Board are going by sterotypes. The College Board should not be in the business of deciding what is considered adversity and determining who has been affected by it.

[Anonymous]

This is really about schools trying to shake off Asian applicants, probably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is really about schools trying to shake off Asian applicants, probably.

Sure its all a grand conspiracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole purpose of the SAT and ACT is that they are *standardized* non-subjective tests of aptitude.

If you have 5 kids taking the same test, you score the tests and see which kid made the best score. Easy, right?

Ha.

see I think this is debatable.

How on earth can the answer to an Algebra 2 problem be subjective? If you give 5 kids the same exact problem to solve and 2 of the kids solve it correctly and mark the right answer, while the other 3 solve it incorrectly and mark the wrong answer.....what else do we need to know?

[Anonymous]

If you get your kid into a good school district and live in a good neighborhood. That’s great for your kids. They have that as an advantage. It’s much larger an advantage than a few points on a adversity score. So shut up! I’m sick of the argument about MC getting the shaft.

Also, If you are too poor to pay for college you would actually qualify for financial aid. So stop whining about that. College is expensive. It’s also optional. This isn’t new.

The only people getting shafted are kids who are born into poverty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale was in the pilot program and they have been using it for the past two years. They said it has helped them increase diversity.

So low IQ get in, how does that make the school good

who said low IQ gets in??

IQ is lower for poor

"lower" does not mean low IQ. I think they are still accepting applicants who are talented and have high scores.

actually it kinda does. even 120 will struggle with any kind of rigorous college material.

you think 120 is a "low IQ"? This honestly doesn't matter though - because this is about the SAT -- not an IQ test.

SAT is a barely disguised IQ test. which is a really stupid thing to do for college acceptance that's USA for you. stupid and arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't see the problem with this. If I understand it correctly, the adversity adjustment is not going to take anything away from anyone, but simply bump up those in disadvantaged circumstances. I think this country is so screwed up in terms of the haves and the have nots. So many outside of our bubble don't have access to tutors, enrichment, stability, etc. We are very well off and both my kids get tutors when needed. My kid is going to a top 20 school and that's because he scored very high on the ACT and we were able to pay for all sorts of enrichment in his high school career. This is SO not typical in other parts of the country, and these kids should have some sort of an opportunity to break out of that cycle.

The people upset about this are probably the same ones who think that learning disabled kids should not get extra time or that everyone should get extra time. It is just amazing how selfish and heartless people can be.

I feel blessed that my kid will have an amazing college experience, but even if he didn't get into his first choice, he would have been FINE!! That would probably not be the case with these kids with the high adversity scores.

And if you really have a problem with it, just prep for the ACT. It's not like you don't have choices.

By bumping some people up, other people by default are going to be bumped down. And the reason people are upset is because the college board has no way of knowing who has faced adversity in their lives and who hasn't. Simply living in a lower income zip code or even being lower income does not necessarily mean that one is disadvantaged disproportionately. An example would be my own family. We have a HHI of $130,000 which is not low income but is lower than the majority of families that my kids go to school with, because we made the decision that I should stay at home. Our lower HHI should be a disadvantage and in some ways it is. However, we are laser focused about education and enriching our kids (which is why I stayed home in the first place) I would say our family is more education focused than the majority of other families who live near us that have higher incomes. And my kids are pretty much the top students at their school. But the College Board would only see a lower HHI and assume that my kids are actually disadvantaged as compared to the families that make more.

??? That's not how it works. They aren't comparing $130,000 HHI with higher HHI and assigning significant adversity score differences. They know that a family with a HHI of $130,000 is fine. They are looking at lower income families and comparing them to you. Do you think they are also comparing those making $500,000 vs. $1M and giving the $500,000 an adversity score benefit that colleges would care about?

My point is that it is difficult for an outsider to determine who faces more adversity than others. You can't no what factors come into play in someone's life that make them more disadvantaged than others and not even income tells you everything. Most people would consider a kid come from a family with an income of $130,000 to be more disadvantaged than a kid coming from a family making $300,000. But in our case, I would not consider my kids to be disadvantaged at all because even though they have less money, they have had a sahm who has basically made a career out of raising them to be well educated, and they are performing higher than most of their peers who come from much more affluent families. This is the problem with solely using income to determine who is advantaged or not. There are so many other factors that could play into it (like the advantage of having an invested sahm) that it is basically impossible for the college board or anyone else to try to gauge who is more advantaged than others and try to put a score to it.

Again, no one is considering a child from a family with a HHI of $130,000 more disadvantaged than people making more money. They might think your kid likely has fewer luxuries, but not those that would arise to adversity. Someone from a family making $50,000 would likely have fewer benefits that actually would result in adversity that could significantly impact academics.

Really, at $130,000 for a family of four in NOVA we can't afford tutors for our kids, yet many posters seem to assume this is the norm for white kids.

[Anonymous]

Well then, what about kids with disabilities? I want a special "adversity" adjustment for my kid with a chronic disease. DK got a 1310 but I think it should be weighted to account for 2+ years out of school sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you get your kid into a good school district and live in a good neighborhood. That’s great for your kids. They have that as an advantage. It’s much larger an advantage than a few points on a adversity score. So shut up! I’m sick of the argument about MC getting the shaft.

Also, If you are too poor to pay for college you would actually qualify for financial aid. So stop whining about that. College is expensive. It’s also optional. This isn’t new.

The only people getting shafted are kids who are born into poverty.

The kids born into poverty get free money for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole purpose of the SAT and ACT is that they are *standardized* non-subjective tests of aptitude.

If you have 5 kids taking the same test, you score the tests and see which kid made the best score. Easy, right?

Ha.

see I think this is debatable.

How on earth can the answer to an Algebra 2 problem be subjective? If you give 5 kids the same exact problem to solve and 2 of the kids solve it correctly and mark the right answer, while the other 3 solve it incorrectly and mark the wrong answer.....what else do we need to know?

There's a whole body of research about how standardized tests may not be as subjective as we think and may unequally benefit certain groups. You can disagree with that premise but you don't seem to know much about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you get your kid into a good school district and live in a good neighborhood. That’s great for your kids. They have that as an advantage. It’s much larger an advantage than a few points on a adversity score. So shut up! I’m sick of the argument about MC getting the shaft.

Also, If you are too poor to pay for college you would actually qualify for financial aid. So stop whining about that. College is expensive. It’s also optional. This isn’t new.

The only people getting shafted are kids who are born into poverty.

The kids born into poverty get free money for college.

oh sure. its all free and wonderful if you're poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well then, what about kids with disabilities? I want a special "adversity" adjustment for my kid with a chronic disease. DK got a 1310 but I think it should be weighted to account for 2+ years out of school sick.

I still think ugly kids should get adversity points.