SAT "adversity" adjustment

[Anonymous]

Jesse Jackson must be jumping up and down out of his grave

[Anonymous]

My kid did not have sex in high school. This is an adversity because they will be starting college with a disadvantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of misunderstanding on this board. Scores are not adjusted- there is just another number near the score to provide context for the socioeconomic status of the student. It is race neutral which is great for poor whites and Asians. Why are you guys so upset?

I’m with you. I see this as a good thing. I value both racial and sociology-economic diversity in education. If the Harvard case results in a new S.Ct. decision making it harder for colleges to take race into account, this measure will be even more important. I have a white girl who could be “hurt” by this measure. But let’s get real, if she goes to a less elite school because of this new measure, she’ll be joined by peers who are similarly situated. So the cohort of student where she ends up will change. It’s not going to impact her in isolation. I suppose she could be “hurt” by attending a school that is not as well regarded or has inferior faculty. But it doesn’t worry me and societal benefits are more important to me than whether she goes to a top 25, 50, or 209th ranked school.

[Anonymous]

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...

NP here - a smart student does not need years of prep classes to familiarize themselves with the rest! I did it on my own over a few months using practice books and exams (and got a 1590). I also attended two Princeton Review prep classes (before begging my parents to let me drop out) because all they did is teach guess-and-check type “strategies” that actually take *longer* to do than solving the problem the regular way! A student who is a good reader and has a solid foundation of algebra and geometry from school does not need prep classes.

That being said, SES needs to be considered in college admissions and it already is at many as part of the “holistic” admissions process. As a PP said, this is a tool for College Board to market to state schools who want to feel good about themselves but don’t have the resources to do holistic admissions for 100k applicants. As an UMC Asian-American, I would be happy with race-based admissions going away and replaced by SES-based. My kids will have opportunities not provided to the poor inner-city kids (as I did) but they shouldn’t be disadvantaged relative to our equally wealthy white neighbors, just because we are Asian!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid did not have sex in high school. This is an adversity because they will be starting college with a disadvantage.

There must be a virgin school out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember the days when higher education was about higher education, not remedial action for failed parenting, local schools and communities.

So how is this to be used? Extra admission points for adversity? How does that equate to education? Social promotion for the under-qualified into schools they don’t do well in?

Remember the days when higher education was about networking for privileged white boys, with none of those pesky women and minorities around (except as staff)?

[Anonymous]

I don't agree with it. I don't think there is a way to quantify experience. That said what tests do Google or the tech companies use to test people's creativity and critical thinking. Are those biased or IQ based? Why don't we include an IQ score also for reference. If the future is data and statistics so we can all be reduced to a band of numbers.

[Anonymous]

If a not so smart kid can endure the boredom of test prep since grade 6 and improved Sat score by 100-200, the kid deserves a spot in college since hshe has demonstrated good work ethic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't agree with it. I don't think there is a way to quantify experience. That said what tests do Google or the tech companies use to test people's creativity and critical thinking. Are those biased or IQ based? Why don't we include an IQ score also for reference. If the future is data and statistics so we can all be reduced to a band of numbers.

It's not quantifying experience, its quantifying the external environments (excluding home environment) that kids come from. I've read the underlying research and it has shown good results in terms of boosting the numbers of low-SES students at selective schools. All this metric does is provide colleges with better and more reliable data they can use when looking holistically at applications.

The Twitter feed for the researcher at U Michigan who spearheaded this has better information than some of the news articles posted.

https://twitter.com/MichaelBastedo/status/1129139617947639808?s=19&fbclid=IwAR2Nfl86zReadbKaBv7MfibXvp55iZkwpiBdOaeZeUlo7BDH19FZ5XadjUg

[Anonymous]

Why don't they just limit the amount of times you can take the SAT to once. Everybody takes it once, at the end of junior year. That would solve a lot of these issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't they just limit the amount of times you can take the SAT to once. Everybody takes it once, at the end of junior year. That would solve a lot of these issues.

There are no easy answers. In my opinion, Coleman's changing the test to rely on Common Core instruction simply made the problem of the bad school environment that much worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid did not have sex in high school. This is an adversity because they will be starting college with a disadvantage.

There must be a virgin school out there.

Does sex in middle school count? That is probably an adversity factor. What kind of kid is having sex in MS? Think about it.

[Anonymous]

My kid is not on social media and that is an adversity factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't they just limit the amount of times you can take the SAT to once. Everybody takes it once, at the end of junior year. That would solve a lot of these issues.

+ 1
One shot and you are done!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to know what the lowest possible adversity score will be. Like if a white kid lives in a $1.2m home in 16th street heights, going to private, with a $500K HHI, does that kid get a higher score than the nearly-identical one living in Bethesda, just because his neighborhood is economically more diverse? And does the kid in Bethesda get “0”?

Yes!! A kid living in a $4 million dollar DC home has a lower neighborhood score than a standard suburb. Big three school and all.

You do realize that they know which school a kid attends when they are making decisions, right? Also, certain zip codes in DC are very wealthy. The adversity score is one piece of the information. They aren't ignoring all the other information available to them. Sheesh.

There are not really wealthy zip codes in DC. There are wealthy neighborhoods. DC is small. There are wealthy zip codes in V and MD.

And look at 20008, which covers some of the wealthiest enclaves, but also lower priced apartment buildings and some fixed income and subsidy housing. Are the low income kids in that zone screwed?