At the moment, it doesn’t look like UF will be using the “Environmental Context Dashboard” or so-called SAT adversity score for the upcoming admissions year. According to an article in the Alligator, the school is evaluating it for future years:
"College Board piloted this new system at more than 50 colleges and universities, including Florida State University. UF was not part of the pilot and has yet to look at how it will impact admissions or how it will use the new dashboard, UF spokesperson Steve Orlando wrote in an email.
For now, UF’s knowledge of the score’s impact is fairly limited, he said. ‘We are currently evaluating its use for future years,’ Orlando said."
Honestly, as the parent of a kid who lives in an affluent neighborhood that we chose because it has good schools, I’m thinking that it would be in our best interest to only submit my kid’s ACT score.
@Gator88NE Why should my children or any children be penalized for growing up in an affluent neighborhood? The idea of a secret score has a bad ring to it. My son was admitted to UF based on being both well rounded and top 3% out of 750 students. Do these accomplishments get diminished due to the fact that we are upper middle class?
Those of us who have been fortunate enough to live in better neighborhoods so that our kids could go to “the good schools” all want our children to have the best chance possible at college acceptance based solely on their hard work and achievements. But we have to see this from the perspective of kids who are not so lucky. There is such a wide variation in the quality of education in our public schools, and this problem isn’t going away. It only makes sense that colleges want to help make life more fair for kids in poor neighborhoods.They have been doing this already by considering the quality of applicants’ high schools and asking students to describe in their essays what adversities they have dealt with. The new score seems to be an attempt to make this judgement of adversity easier and more uniform. Whether or not it will achieve that goal is another question, but the motivation is a good one.
Yes, this means that some kids who would previously have been admitted based on their grades, test scores, and ECs will be displaced by some kids who would not have been admitted previously. But how else can you make up for the unfairness of life for kids who are attending schools you wouldn’t dream of sending your kids to?
@BunnyBlue So if I understand you correctly you would be perfectly fine with your son or daughter being “displaced” due to this secret score? Bye the way who said life is fair? I guess I should feel ashamed that I can provide opportunities for my children that I never had. Or worse my son should feel bad that he was admitted over someone less privileged.
@CV6780 Yes, you understood me correctly. One can never know for sure if that is the reason when one’s kid doesn’t get accepted, but if I thought that mine was displaced by someone because of hardship consideration, I would moan and complain with great indignation just like everyone else, lol, but underneath I would be accepting. Obviously you should be proud of doing your best to get wonderful opportunities for your children. If only there were some way to have equally good schools with equally good teachers in all the neighborhoods.
As an auditor, my problem with things not being transparent is that it could very well be wrong. If it is going to make a difference, I see no reason for it not to be transparent.
My kid shouldn’t be displaced in college admissions because they had the ability or luck to be educated well as they grew up.
If judgements on “adversity “ are to be made start in elementary school and make all those tax dollars efficient. For the dollars spent every kid rich,poor,any color or background should be getting the equivalent of a good private school education.
Much of what this adversity score is trying to quantify should already be considered as part of any holistic evaluation of applicants, and I have no problem with the idea that a kid who has had to overcome economic and sociological disadvantages to succeed could be accepted instead of my child who may have higher test scores and grades, but who has had significantly more support and advantages helping her achieve that success.
But the zip code or school district doesn’t always tell the story. We lived on the outskirts of one of the best school districts but my kids didn’t go to that school because it was year round and I preferred a catholic school. Also, that zip code had some of the homes in the ‘rich’ school district and others in the inner city district. Two school buses went down our street every day, one for the rich district, the other for the city schools.
Efforts to achieve equality have to be watched like a hawk or they will be used to favor one group over another or an undeserving individual over a deserving individual. For instance, how many wealthy blacks get preferential treatment over poor Asians or whites? My remaining child will not be taking the SAT. We’ll stick to the ACT.
@shuttlebus is that online somewhere? If my kid doesn’t submit his SAT scores, he would still be evaluated by the College Board? Due to AP scores, perhaps? Fascinating developments.
@shuttlebus if kids get assigned an adversity score even if they don’t submit SAT scores to a school, I think that will cause a major uprising. Again, fascinating.
As others have alluded, this concept is fraught with unintended traps. There are countless scenarios of how this score will disadvantage even some of those it is intended to advantage. The underlying factors are much more complex than an algorithm can capture.
Like every other effort to level the playing field, someone has to be disadvantaged for another to be advantaged. In the name of fairness these efforts are deployed, and unfairness is a result. Just against a different group of people.
When this news story came out, I got as outraged as everyone else (hidden scores?!).
But now I’ve decided this is a bunch of nothing. The College Board is trying to counter the argument that the SAT scores are racially biased, and this is their way to make the argument that it’s not (We’ve added Context!).
First, only the very selective schools use holistic admissions, and would even consider this information. In the state of Florida (for state universities) that’s UF and to a much less degree FSU. The other public universities put far less focus on non-academic factors (if any at all).
UF already considers many of these factors.
UF already “considers” geographical residence (which is different from state residency, which is also considered). We never talk about it, because it’s something we can’t influence. No one should move, because UF considers geographical residence.
UF already considers which HS you attend, as a way to put your GPA, course rigor and class rank into “context”.
UF already considers (it’s “very important”) the student’s essay and any information they have shared in the application.What the student writes in the essay/application will have far more weight than this “adversity score”.
Finally, UF already considers (it’s “important”) “First generation” status.This factor isn’t about to be replaced by the ECD Dashboard.
We already know that UF may take a kid from a lower performing HS, before one with a higher GPA/Test score at a high performing HS. Then again, that same low performing HS may have only sent 2 kids to UF, while the high performing HS sent 100+.
:neutral: At the end of the day, I don’t think the “ECD” will have any noticeable impact on UF admissions. It’s more information that they may consider, but it’s not enough for us to worry about it. Treat it like we do today with “geographical residence”.
Don’t expect UF to make changes, based on ECD data, that would impact the average ACT/SAT/GPA scores of it’s incoming class of freshman. The average ACT/SAT/GPA scores will continue to slowly creep up over the next several years, as UF becomes more and more competitive (and the state population continues to grow, which leads to an even bigger pool of potential UF applicants)…
