College Board Disadvantage Score
nicespice
So now less privileged students will get a boost on SAT scores. I guess most of the issue around that will come down to how one feels about affirmative action type of stuff anyways. But I find this part especially interesting
“The College Board will withhold the scores from the students themselves, and will allow only the universities considering applications to see the adversity index.”
I don’t understand the perceived need for less transparency, but idk. Thoughts?
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From what I've heard blacks and Latinos, for whom affirmative action is often targeted, drop out of college and never finish getting a degree bc they are given preferential admittance where they may not o/w qualify for admittance, then when in college they are unable to handle the academic demands and end up dropping out - in essence they were kinda "helped" to fail.
The test score should be the test score. If a college wants to take adversity into account they have that right, but it should be a conscious decision that they make. It shouldn't be mixed in.
I'd also be interested to know what determines this index. Does your score get reduced if you're asian?
It is very impressive if someone perseveres through a hardship (homelessness, significant abnormality, ...) and should be considered in the admissions process. It just shouldn't be taken into account to adjust a test score.
https://www.countable.us/articles/14224-…
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Just to be more precise, their SAT scores are not "boosted." This is a separate "adversity" score that complements the raw SAT scores.
For those of you bitching about affirmative action, I wonder how you feel about (1) varsity athletes at the Ivies who have average SAT scores 100s of points lower than the median and (2) legacy admissions for rich kids. With the exception of places like MIT and Caltech, there are very few meritocracies in US colleges. And wealthy kids have such a huge advantage. I have first-hand experience with the kids in Silicon Valley who have personal tutors and coaches in each subject. Compare that to an inner-city kid who barely has enough money to buy lunch and who receives no academic guidance from their parents.
I have sympathy for the talented Asian kids suing Harvard, too. But lazy, rich, legacy students deserve nothing but contempt.
fuck the fact that the address is in East LA. really close to USC.
My guess is this will greatly benefit high scoring lower income students who already would have been highly desirable but now will be easy to search for. I do hope it focuses much more on economic hardship than race, as right now high scoring black kids are super desirable to boost a colleges diversity even as most of those kids come from relatively affluent backgrounds.
Basically the SAT is just providing a score that colleges are already using.
I hate today’s victimology and “compensatory”/merit-ignoring affirmative action correctness as much as anyone, but this actually seems designed to help compare raw test scores more “apples to apples”. Equality of opportunity seems a better goal than this income-redistribution “equality of condition regardless of merit” BS promoted by life’s losers.