Reply to SAT "adversity" adjustment

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]One other thing to consider is 'undermatching' - when highly qualified, disadvantaged students do not even apply to elite institutions (see article below). The elite colleges want to FIND and recruit these students -- which is why they use data mining for their marketing and use it to guide their in-person outreach.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/04/when-disadvantaged-students-overlook-elite-colleges/558371/

"Every year, scores of gifted students have their college prospects hampered by life circumstances.[b] Imagine a teenager attending a high school where few of his peers make it to graduation, much less college. This student, however, is a high achiever. His grade-point average and test scores show it. In fact, they’re good enough to get into some of the best institutions in the country. But he doesn’t go to any of those institutions—let alone apply for them. Actual high-schoolers like this hypothetical student and the issues they face are very real.[/b]

The phenomenon—in which students do not attend the most selective colleges their qualifications suggest they could—is called “undermatching.” Few theories have garnered as much attention from the higher-education crowd as quickly as undermatching has. As Matthew Chingos, a policy expert at the Urban Institute, puts it, perhaps the chief problem with undermatching is that it disproportionately happens to low-income and minority students. A range of benefits comes with attending an elite institution: name recognition, more financial resources, and oftentimes an alumni network connected to powerful places. And by undermatching, capable students with unique perspectives on the world might miss out on those advantages—exacerbating a trend in which affluent students dominate the pipeline of those positioned for leadership roles....

Minority and low-income students undermatch for countless reasons. They may not have been made aware of their college options, some because they didn’t have a guidance counselor to do so. Those who did learn about their options may have received the information after the application deadline. Then there’s the fact that college recruiters tend to look for students at high-achieving high schools. And sometimes students may feel—or have been told—that selective colleges, or college more generally, is simply out of their league. Or that those selective schools are cost-prohibitive—even though such institutions tend to be more generous with financial aid than less-selective ones."

Having an adversity index readily available can help admissions offices review and reach out to the disadvantaged students that do apply - inviting them to special visit days and paying for travel costs, for example to help convince them that they can succeed and afford a selective school. [/quote]

This is a dated story, but I have a friend who grew up in poverty (Miami-Dade) but was really bright. Parents and siblings hadn't finished HS. Naturally STEM-inclined and scored a perfect 800 in Math on the SAT. He was bussed to a magnet school and it never occurred to him to apply to college until his (White) classmates asked him where he was applying to. He asked them and just applied blindly to every school that they did. He got into MIT, but was advised by the counselor at school that it would not be a good fit for a kid like him. He was urged to attend school locally instead. Heeding the advice, he attended University of Miami instead. Fine school, but no MIT. Kids like him are really out there.[/quote]

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