I don’t get it. Why do schools need this adversity score, which is an aggregate score based on a region, (down to zip code?) when they have much more detailed information on individual students, like their parents’ tax returns?
From College Board link in post #3:
Allows staff to see SAT scores in context:
“In my mind, it is the only responsible way
to consider testing in a selective college
context. Having standardized contextual
information makes me feel much better
about requiring standardized testing of our
applicants and using the information after
students enroll for help in transitioning
them.”
Have they not been able to do this all along?
So the CB is inserting itself even more into the admissions process. Who makes the determinations regarding the adversity score for each applicant? Where does the info come from? Is the info vetted? What if applicants lie? So thankful I’m done with this ridiculous process and seriously empathize with those still to run the gauntlet. Maybe just go for the ACT.
I am disgusted with this. There are many factors that cannot possibly be considered unless you personally know each student. CB needs to be completely transparent with what your “adversity score” is, how they came to that conclusion, and which colleges are using it. Apparently 50 schools beta tested it this year and 150 more will be using it next year. I truly hope that someone brings a lawsuit to end this stupidity.
I’d also like to know which schools, besides, Yale used it this year and which ones are using it next year., Where is the transparency?
I’ve read three short descriptions of this and it isn’t entirely clear whether neighborhood information (housing stabiity, crime rates, etc.) are measured at the school or student address. Could be different, especially for students not enrolled in neighborhood schools.
Well, yes, you can lie. Lying, cheating, stealing beneficial. And you can even get away with murder. If you don’t get caught, all of these things can reap big benefits. Heck, as this latest big scandal showed, looks like the cheatin’ crowd right there all along.
So, yes, this is another way to cheat. However, at most selective colleges, where the AO attempts to get s good picture of the candidates that interest them the most, they do look at things like if URM is indicated, if the applicant is applying for financial aid, the zip code, and they ask about parent profession and level of education. Esssys and recs and ECs also give away background. If answers on the SAT questionairre do not mesh with the info at hand, further investigation may follow. Getting caught lying or exaggerating not good.
The UCs do this sort of thing already, don’t they?
I don’t think it’s a good idea. I don’t like it. It’s not new that this sort of assessment has been going on, however, for a while.
@sunsweet 100%.
“What’s to keep a kid from checking off that they receive free school lunch, are low income, have a single parent? Honestly, in my day, had I known that was how I was going to be assessed for college admission, I would have done that to game the system.”
As far as I can see, these are only stats for the school (or district/census area) as a whole. The kid doesn’t enter anything about their personal details. So if a rich married parent with a PhD sends their kid to a school with a low median income, and a high % of free school lunches, ESL and single parents, they still get all the benefits of the high “adversity score” for that high school.
This report drills down to the applicant’s address level, not their school address. So in that sense it is more personalized (and accurate).
“This report drills down to the applicant’s address level, not their school address. So in that sense it is more personalized (and accurate).”
The dashboard examples given only show the student’s home city and school name. So it appears that the “neighborhood” is not personalized but is instead averaged across the catchment area for the high school. Indeed one reference explicitly states something like this “Family stability is a combined measure based on the proportion of two-parent families, single-parent families, and children living under the poverty line within each neighborhood, or across the neighborhoods of past students attending that high school. It is primarily based on U.S. Census–derived population data.”
So I don’t see anything here which suggests it is personalized. The student’s home address is not indicated to be amongst the data used.
From one of the pdf’s someone posted.
It seems that Colleges have been doing something like this for a long time and this just takes it out of their hands and standardizes it for all schools. Colleges don’t have to use it but it seems they want something like this.
This presentation, slide 11, says that neighborhood adversity is measured at the "Census Tract’ level, which is generally defined as a neighborhood of 2,500-8,000 people. https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.guidebook.com/upload/102712/xb1jRCIejfKg2Q6Pkgt9IUOzMitXuNx4IFiB.pdf
So that may or may not be the same at the high school level. In urban areas in particular, there may be vast differences when considering an applicant’s neighborhood vs their high school’s.
“So that may or may not be the same at the high school level. In urban areas in particular, there may be vast differences when considering an applicant’s neighborhood vs their high school’s.”
Exactly, which is why another quote above notes “It is important to note that even systematically and consistently measured data may not represent a student’s personal experience. Rather, any data on environmental context merely suggest certain aspects of the school and community environments to which individual students were likely exposed.”
As I pointed out above there appears to be averaging “across the neighborhoods of past students attending that high school” presumably because most high schools will draw from multiple census tracts.
This whole effort appears to be targeted either at (large public?) colleges which don’t do as much individual holistic evaluation, or to allow a subset of applications to be pulled out for more detailed consideration. In the end it’s surely much more relevant what “adversity” was experienced by individual students, not the school as a whole.
Also interesting to note the commonalities with “contextual evaluation” used by Oxbridge colleges to pull out disadvantaged students whose exam performance might otherwise not qualify for interview. But there it is about shortlisting students for interview, at which point everyone is on an equal footing in terms of evaluating underlying intelligence, and then adjusting their exam results projection/conditional offer for quality of school teaching. See https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/contextual-data
This is an obvious attempt at hiding real average group differences to please the SJW crowd. Lower income Whites have a higher avg SAT than upper income Blacks. And Asians of all income levels tend to out perform everyone else. This is an attempt to hide not change real average differences in scores across racial groups.
http://www.jbhe.com/features/53_SAT.html
Does anyone know if the score that reflects the addition of adversity points will be able to be used by schools when showing their avg SAT? If so, this will help raise the avg SAT of a lot of schools with higher AA enrollments, like ones in the South. I wonder if they have fully thought this through.
I don’t think this is very fair. What about the high income who can buy houses in “ghetto” areas and pretend they live there? What about the low income asians who score highly? What about those who are high income but their family doesn’t support them because of their personal ideology (LGBT+ children)?
How cynical.
@Atlanta68 totally agree.
From what I understand, the score is separate and just for use for admissions, but with the lack of transparency on the part of CB, we really don’t know. I don’t think they have thought this through at all.
THIS THIS THIS
Talk about an ineffective tool:
- It has undergone numerous revisions during its full history. Some of those revisions have bene politically motivated.(read, Race)
- There’s an entire counter-standardized-test movement called the Test Optional colleges. U of Chicago, an institution which itself places a premium on academic performance, recently went test-optional.
- Colleges are increasingly doubtful of the reliability of the test to assess college performance.
- The essay portion – often revamped – is still considered unreliable. None of the Ivy League colleges even consider the essay portion now; more colleges are following in their footsteps.
- It has spawned an international Underground Economy, including purchased exams, purchased scores, and more.
- Its value for admission is questionable, given that “grades + scores” are only two subsets of many for admission to top colleges, and those two are often eclipsed by other elements of the application.
Lose the SAT/ACT. There are better assessment tools and more are possible.
Thanks Damon30.
It is not cool that I can’t know what the score is and the schools do.
We need transparency.
It’s like the credit agencies giving your rating to a loan agency without reporting it to you.