Basically, the quiz tries to determine whether you had favorable or unfavorable life circumstances / luck that may have helped or hurt you in life (including school, work, and social status). In relation to the main topic of these forums, that can relate to how college admission readers try to account for achievement in context of adversity or lack thereof.
The scoring is kind of odd. Lower scores indicate more favorable life circumstances / luck, and the possible score range is 45 to 91 (but the initial score result shown is “__ / 100”). 65 or 66 seems to be the closest to neutral (i.e. neither favorable nor unfavorable overall). 53 or lower is supposed to mean that nearly everything was in your favor, while 80 or higher is supposed to mean that nearly everything was working against you.
I’m 56% and it seems pretty accurate. I was fortunate to be raised in an intact family in a good neighborhood and had some very supportive friends and mentors along the way. Have overcome some health struggles for me and my family but feel I have had more going for me than against me.
I thought I’d have a score that would have been lower in the sense that I did have a very comfortable upbringing. However, I am 1st gen, so I had to navigate everything regarding applying to colleges, jobs, grad school by myself. My parents had no idea how the American school system/jobs/explaining gap years worked. I was expected to study- that was my job.
84 – I don’t think the description of “you’ve had so much more working against you than in your favor” is accurate. I think of my background as nothing especially uncommon – near average income family, regular public primary schools, parents made an effort and did many things well, … . Many people, including all of my parents/grandparents/… grew up in orders of magnitudes more challenging situations than I did.
60 for me. I think the only negative against me that the calculator uses is my gender. It mentions a few others but I don’t understand how they are relevant to me. (“Not a lot of educational support”??)
I didn’t have to think too hard about any of the choices, so I guess it’s accurate for me. Although I’d say I grew up with very little, my non-college-educated parents always made it work and provided a secure, if modest, home. They stayed together until I went to college, and my immigrant/ESL dad taught me and my brother from the get-go about hard work and how to manage money, especially the value of savings and the evil of debt. It was important to him that we took school seriously, but neither parent encouraged us to go to college. That we both did (eventually) was due to other influences and luck.
Some of the questions are subject to interpretation (as often is true). For instance “we had what we need” - depending who you are/how you lived, you see that differently. “Major Life Event” - everyone will describe this differently.
So much of this correlates to Adverse Childhood Experiences/ Social Determinants of Health. ACES are a tool that pediatricians use to measure childhood trauma - you can’t erase ACES but you can mitigate if you have PCE’s - positive childhood experiences. The survey even references some of this in the post quiz sections.
56, pretty accurate. I’ve taken a number of these “privilege quizzes” and this one was one of the better ones, but I still had issues with some of the options.
My birthdate is on the cusp between two of their decade blocks. Going with one I got 63, going with the other I got 67. Two months should not make that much difference! But when I clicked through to the “Will you make as much as your parents?” information they linked, it quickly became clear why. Those born in 1960 are much more like those born in 1970 than those born in 1950 with regard to economic opportunities. Overall, I was not surprised, that I was in the middle.
I got a 67. Given that I live in Canada and I’ve benefited from a fairly extensive social safety net, I thought my score would have been lower. One interesting thing though for that score I ticked “Other” for race but when I chose “White” my score lowered to 60. I have dual ethnicity and while I think of myself as White, I’m not always sure how other people perceive me or if it makes a difference. The biggest factors going against me were my gender and the decade in which I was born. The biggest factors in favour were growing up in a stable family, access to quality education, living in a safe neighbourhood, good health, and strong public infrastructure.
And in a nutshell, this is good (or bad) indication of the strikes against those living in adverse conditions.
Separate thought:
So would be interesting to have siblings - maybe 20’s/30’s year max - take the quiz and see how much their scores vary. Since a lot of the questions have to so with birth-early adulthood.
The quiz presumably assumes the US social and economic environment and safety net, which mostly means that the disadvantage for being poor is greater than in Canada.