If you are interested in the legal issues, read the Fisher II opinions, including the dissents.
@roethlisburger I am and will do. Thanks.
The author of “Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race” has written an opinion piece in the NYT titled, The SAT’s Bogus ‘Adversity Score’. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/opinion/sat-adversity-score.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=Opinion
Given the attacks on AA in the Harvard and UNC lawsuits, I think that this is where admissions committees are headed (if not already there: in a separate NYT article, it is reported that Yale has used the College Board’s new tool for two admissions cycles, said Jeremiah Quinlan, the dean of undergraduate admissions.).
As one pundit states in the article, “the purpose is to get to race without using race”. I’m curious to what you all think (especially @changethegame) about the new SAT initiative as well as to the opinion piece which was strongly against the initiative.
The adversity score seems pretty slimy to me. If it weren’t, they would be more transparent by telling us how it is figured, and letting kids know what their adversity scores. This seems unprecedented to be judged on a number that you aren’t even allowed to know.
Also, they try to lend credibility to the adversity score by saying it is “data-driven”, implying there is some sort of fancy data science and artificial intelligence behind the score. The problem is that there is no objective metric for adversity to base artificial intelligence models upon. Models typically target metrics like sales, profit, positive identification, etc.
@havesomeheart I have not read much into the new SAT initiative at this point but what I have read so far does make me pause. I have read that there are 3 main components. The issues that are involved in seeing the adversity that a student goes through is 3-dimensional and very complex, so it is hard for me to even envision how an Adversity index score (seems like a 1-dimensional measure) could capture what is going on in a student’s life. Just as an example, one of my few friends I knew who was raised by two educated biological parents, and grew up upper middle class neighborhood had a terrible home life (due to a sickly parent and a functioning alcoholic parent who was always working) and had a much tougher home life than I did despite my household having 1/8th of the wealth of his household. How can a score measure that?
But if College Board lost a percentage of students taking the SAT who may be adversely affected by this new Adversity index in favor of the ACT, I have no doubt this policy would be unceremoniously dropped. I also wonder what would happen if the data showed that students within a certain index score are much more successful at a school? Do you go the other way and look for more students in that range? Does trying to find students in every range at certain percentages become a “defacto quota” of sorts? I am not worried about the implications at this point, but there would need to be a lot of transparency (How the score is calculated and how schools would use such an index in admissions decisions) but it just seems too simplistic a method for what is such a complex multidimensional topic.
@changethegame you raise good points similar to what the author of “The SAT’s Bogus ‘Adversity Score’ does.
- Yet exactly what constitutes privilege and disadvantage can be counterintuitive: There is no metric to take into account the casual racism that I had to navigate in my [white] neighborhood, a difficulty I was keenly aware friends of mine on the more socially cohesive and nurturing black side of town were often able to avoid. … And so the dehumanizing message of the new adversity index is that America’s young people are nothing but interchangeable sociological points of data — and the jagged complexity of an individual life somehow can be sanded down, quantified and fairly contrasted. … Thus, whatever one’s views on affirmative action, this new score introduces an inscrutable redundancy — one that cannot be disputed or appealed.*
Also you mention the need for transparency, but it looks like there will be very little of that forthcoming. And a Wall street journal article on SAT diversity score (https://www.wsj.com/articles/sat-to-give-students-adversity-score-to-capture-social-and-economic-background-11557999000) reports that the makers of the ACT are working on something similar which they will announce later this year.
Why do we need more bureaucratic influence in the hands of the College Board?
Don’t they already have an almost irrational amount of power?
Don’t most colleges do these type of calculations already, more or less according to their institutional values and need?
Most selective colleges are only moderately selective, where academic stats (GPA, rank, test scores) are likely the only thing (besides which admission bucket, like major, division, in-state, depending on the college) that matters for most applicants.
Also, most do not have enough FA budget to give good FA, so “high adversity score” admits would not benefit the college (unlikely to matriculate, or more likely to drop out due to running out of money if they do matriculate).
Even good FA schools need to regulate their FA spending, so using this “adversity score” would only be for adding more input to existing processes, not necessarily increasing the number from disadvantaged backgrounds.
When I grew up in a relatively poor, recent immigrant family (dad drove taxi and mom worked at grocery deli; dad had only elementary education while mom had high school education), if someone had told me that I was disadvantaged academically, I would have laughed at that notion. Although I was lazy, cocky bum academically and had low GPA (2.9 to 3.0 GPA) throughout my academic career – mostly because of my inflated sense of confidence based on what I don’t know now – it never occurred to me that I was somehow disadvantaged compared to others from getting good SAT score. In fact, my environment drove me to try harder to succeed in my business after college. I categorically disagree that you need to have money to go to SAT Prep School to do well. What you need is a desire to do well in SAT. I scored 99.99% (1 out of 1,000) score by studying 1.5 hours every day during 3 months summer vacation. And believe me, I was no genius or a kind of student who could get As without studying.
I can even understand that there are certain disadvantages in growing up in poor families, but people don’t realize that there are certain advantages also. In my line of work, I met billionaires, rich and not rich people and their kids; and I can say flat out that there is no greater disadvantage than growing up in a family without the sense of love. And there is no greater advantage than growing up under the parents who love and encourage you. To me, as long as you have enough to eat and a place to sleep and a family who cares about you, you are not disadvantaged in any way.
This Adversity Score is another indication that people are just more interested in finding excuses for not doing as well as they are capable of doing.
@websensation very well said:
“And there is no greater advantage than growing up under the parents who love and encourage you. To me, as long as you have enough to eat and a place to sleep and a family who cares about you, you are not disadvantaged in any way.”
Your work ethic is exemplary and you are exactly right. At the end of the day, there are ways for most students (especially those that have the support system you describe) to get around financial/neighborhood obstacles and those kids deserve to succeed.
The neighborhood component of the adversity score makes no sense. One of the criteria is the percentage of renters. You can buy a home for $10k in a cheap area or rent a penthouse that costs a thousand times that. This data mining may make sense if "the purpose is to get to race without using race,” or to mislead the courts on how race is being used in admissions.
I recently had a discussion with a friend on Affirmative Action dealing with the large disparities in certain career fields being produced out of HBCUs (40% of Black congressional members, 40% of all black engineers, 50% of black Lawyers, 65% of black doctors, 80% of all black judges graduate from a HBCU at undergraduate or graduate school level) despite their much smaller imprint on Higher education (3% of all 2 and 4 year schools and about 10% of all black students attend HBCUs).
Why is Affirmative Action at PWIs not cutting into those numbers when HBCUs have large student bodies of Pell Grant eligible students and lack the same level of resources? My friend’s theory is that black students can see more actual examples of African American achievement and get more mentoring and support. I have seen 1st hand the positive effects of diversity (my children’s k-12 experiences have been very positive), but why are we not seeing as many high level black professionals without HBCUs?
One of my chief arguments against AA is that it is wrong (that using race as a strong statistically relevant tip like we see in Harvard admissions is discriminatory), but some will argue the results (Black graduation rates at top schools match student body numbers as a whole) and the diversity factor/societal discrimination against minorities make it necessary. Whether or not college admissions ends the practice of AA soon (Even past SCOTUS decision on AA basically noted it is just a matter of time), what I am looking for from PWIs is to produce more top black professionals and leaders in high paying fields from their ranks.
My son’s ultimate goal is to become an engineer and his odds to do so as an African American male are much greater by attending a HBCU. Is that because of AA (higher percentage of black students switching majors shown in Duke study possibly due to mismatching), or not enough support at a PWI, or is their some other overlooked factor?
I agree with most of your post, but disagree with this last part:
I don’t think this applies in your son’s case.
You opened my eyes about the importance of HBCUs many months ago. But I suspect the reason they succeed is because HBCUs are used to a large group of students that are relatively unprepared, relative to students at elite colleges, and have mastered the practice of making many of them into high performing adults.
But your son is already a high performing student. If his math skills are strong, he can become an engineer just about anywhere.
@hebegebe You are right as my son will be able to handle the academic side of most things thrown his way. But I do believe there is something missing that affects even high achieving African American students at top PWIs. My kids don’t want to just graduate from a college, which is the main goal, but only makes up a piece of what they are looking for. One role model of color for my son is Georgia Tech grad and current MIT graduate student Joy Buolamwini (a Rhodes Scholar, a Fulbright fellow, a Stamps scholar, an Astronaut Scholar and an Anita Borg Institute scholar) who has been working to change the world from her academic discipline. When I read data that 1/2 of all African Americans attending some prestigious PWI are in the bottom 20% of all graduates (saw that exact phrase in a recent article), it is hard to get excited about AA and its possible effects on my son’s chances at an elite institution (Son will probably apply to 3 top 20 schools). For my kids, getting in to some top school and graduating at the lower end of a class is not enough. My kids expect to be at the top of any class at any school in America. I have had someone laugh in my face when I said that. Maybe that is a pipe dream, but that response irritates me to no end.
I recently read an interesting article (in a paywall so won’t attach) on Brown University economist Dr. Glenn Lowry and his thoughts on AA. Looking through some of his other writings, the most interesting thing he says about AA (paraphrasing his comment) deals with AA’s patronizing nature and the fact that it is saturated with the bigotry of low expectations.
I think you are confounding statistical data with individual prospects.
Your son’s likely class rank is not determined by his race – it is determined by his own abilities and level of motivation.
I think there is also something of a reversed perspective on low expectations if a student chooses an HBCU over a PWI with the perception that it will improve his prospects of graduating at the upper end of the class (Why? Because HBCU’s are easier or less rigorous? Can you see why I see that as in itself something of a biased assumption? That is, if your son qualifies for admission to a PWI based on his own academic strengths, why would you be worried that he wouldn’t do well?)
There may be other social factors that come into play and contribute to the quality of the overall experience – and there is definitely an overall consideration as to the big-fish-in-a-small-pond benefits (which Gladwell has written about – but I think is an entirely different issue than racial makeup). And I certainly can understand concerns about fit, or the availability of other opportunities such as internships and career advising So I think many excellent reasons for a student of color to choose an HCBU – but I just don’t think that an assumption that a minority student coming from a strong academic prep background doesn’t have what it takes to excel at a PWI should be one of them
I’m sure those bottom 20% statistics include a lot of students who are simply coming from high schools that gave them weaker preparation – so many are probably starting out at a disadvantage, as well as the cultural disadvantage they may have, particularly for first-generation college students who simply haven’t been exposed to elite academic environments and the expectations that come with it. As well as many who are dragged down by their economic circumstances or other life problems and stressors - I wonder what the stats would be on college performance of white kids from economically disadvantaged backgrounds at the elite schools.
@calmom I am sure it is easy for you to believe in a reversed perspective. For the best and the brightest students at HBCUs, they will get pushed, pulled, and stretched to the limits of their abilities while also given levels of personal mentoring that I just have not seen often from my non-HBCU brethren.
I kind of laugh at your own perspective, because those “lowered expectations” of a HBCU produces such an outsized number of top African American professionals and leaders despite a severe lack of funding. Don’t you wonder how that possible? I guess the 2/3’s of my daughter’s scholarship cohort that turned down top 20 schools have just decided to live on lowered expectations (all while they intern or do research this summer at places that you would not believe). I know quite a few Ivy African Americans students and they are not getting this same level opportunities (at least early in undergrad as they all just seem to travel) and I am not sure why.
There is a place for minorities at elite PWIs and I totally believe that they will be a part of both of my children’s journey. My daughter is doing great at her top 20 USNWR research lab this summer and is already doing work that should be way above her current level of education as a rising sophomore at a HBCU. My son is about to go to Carnegie Mellon (SAMS) for the next 6 weeks and I have no doubt that he will be a top performer.
Just like HBCUs are not necessarily for all top black students, Elite PWIs are not necessarily for all top black students. The status of a school does not mean as much for me as a school having everything necessary to help my bright black kids get where they are trying to go. PWIs can do that and HBCUs can do that for my kids as well.
Lowered expectations is letting a school look at race and having a lower standard for acceptance than what is used to evaluate students of other races.
The success of HBCUs is concentrated among a small number of schools.
@roethlisburger I don’t look to dispute your numbers, but just ask you to also look at the percentage of Pell Grant eligible students (I have heard numbers as high as 75% at several top HBCUs) that attend HBCUs in comparison to PWIs. When one of the wealthiest HBCU student bodies (Howard University) has an average household income of 65K per household, I am not totally surprised by the numbers you proved. Black Families like mine tend to choose PWIs along with PWIs having more funding for poor students. Poor students should always go where the money is at because it was the top factor I saw that hindered HBCU students from making it to graduation.
You’ve shifted the topic. I was addressing your comment about class rank (“1/2 of all African Americans attending some prestigious PWI are in the bottom 20% of all graduates”). I assume that about 15% of all African Americans attending less HBCU’s end up graduating at the bottom 20% of their classes… (my math tells me that 20% of all college students will end up in the bottom 20% of their classes-- and the internet tells me that 76% of students at HBCU’s are African American – so I just multiplied 20% by 76%, assuming race not to be a factor related to performance at an HBCU…)
You implied that you were concerned that your high-achieving son might not perform as well at a prestigious PWI school as he would at an HBCU – based on raw statistics that give no indication whatsoever as to the reasons for weaker performance. Why do you expect or anticipate that your high-performing son would run into problems in that environment?
I mean, someone is going to be at the bottom and someone is going to be a the top, and that has nothing to do with future career prospects.
@calmom I am confident in my own son’s capabilities to be a top student anywhere. I was saying that the percentages say otherwise for a large number of African American students at the elite school mentioned in the article I read. My son can compete because that is the expectation in my household, not a lowered one. Lowered expectations is a big part of the achievement gap, because not doing as well as others is acceptable.