SAT now scoring for the Oppression Olympics

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't like this idea at all. No one should be denied access or control over their own application packet, or selected for reasons they can't change or improve on in any way. Students of color are already routinely, overtly harassed by people like Derec, every day they go to class, because of the perception they got an invisible leg up. This will just make things worse, because the student themselves won't even know if its true or not.

This isn't about race. This about other factors, like income and crime. We know Derec is paranoid that this metric will be used to make certain no white person ever goes to college again, but really, are we going to use Derec as the measuring stick for reasoning?

 

[Politesse]

I don't like this idea at all. No one should be denied access or control over their own application packet, or selected for reasons they can't change or improve on in any way. Students of color are already routinely, overtly harassed by people like Derec, every day they go to class, because of the perception they got an invisible leg up. This will just make things worse, because the student themselves won't even know if its true or not.

This isn't about race. This about other factors, like income and crime. We know Derec is paranoid that this metric will be used to make certain no white person ever goes to college again, but really, are we going to use Derec as the measuring stick for reasoning?

How could you possibly know that? They aren't showing their work. I strongly suspect that this is based largely on, as it were, enumeration district. There's no way you actually could determine apparent race aside from asking directly, but they will use proxy data to make questionable guesses about the household.

And if you're worried about race, consider that everyone at the college can see this "score", but there are no rules at all about how it can be used, and it is very nearly designed so as to avoid existing law. It might be used to foster diversity, but the same data could be used to reduce it just as easily, with no legal consequences. "Adversity" is an iventented category with no legal protection at present. What's to prevent a Northern Midwest school from, say, refusing to take more than a certain quota of poor or minority students, if their proxy for doing so is this number whose calculation is a secret? Or subtly selecting poor white students over poor black ones, looking for students who "look white" in the interview stage but have a high adversity score, thus ensuring that they get all the funding tied to disadvantaged students without having to face a student body profile they aren't comfortable with? Don't tell me they wouldn't do it. Our current Democratic presidential frontrunner made a career out of challenging public busing in Detroit, and our current Republican Secretary of Education did much the same ; racism is alive and well in education, and this data will sllow them to act much more invisibly in advancing their agendas.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't like this idea at all. No one should be denied access or control over their own application packet, or selected for reasons they can't change or improve on in any way. Students of color are already routinely, overtly harassed by people like Derec, every day they go to class, because of the perception they got an invisible leg up. This will just make things worse, because the student themselves won't even know if its true or not.

This isn't about race. This about other factors, like income and crime. We know Derec is paranoid that this metric will be used to make certain no white person ever goes to college again, but really, are we going to use Derec as the measuring stick for reasoning?

How could you possibly know that?

It was what they said they do. And currently, the race of the applicant is already known, so if a school wanted to persecute white people, by just letting in black students, that mechanism already exists.

They aren't showing their work. I strongly suspect that this is based largely on, as it were, enumeration district. There's no way you actually could determine apparent race aside from asking directly, but they will use proxy data to make questionable guesses about the household.

Or they could look at the address of the applicant and do a Zillow search.

 

[Toni]

I don't like this idea at all. No one should be denied access or control over their own application packet, or selected for reasons they can't change or improve on in any way. Students of color are already routinely, overtly harassed by people like Derec, every day they go to class, because of the perception they got an invisible leg up. This will just make things worse, because the student themselves won't even know if its true or not.

This isn't about race. This about other factors, like income and crime. We know Derec is paranoid that this metric will be used to make certain no white person ever goes to college again, but really, are we going to use Derec as the measuring stick for reasoning?

How could you possibly know that? They aren't showing their work. I strongly suspect that this is based largely on, as it were, enumeration district. There's no way you actually could determine apparent race aside from asking directly, but they will use proxy data to make questionable guesses about the household.

The SAT is simply trying to salvage something of its reputation. It has been well documented for decades that the SAT is a better measure of the parents’ socioeconomic status than it is of actual academic ability.

Admissions very often already consider factors such as parental level of education, zip code (there isagreat deal of poverty in rural areas as well) and so on. Generally, they are aware of the reputation of the high school and other relevant programs the student had access to.

The biggest issue for most students who wish to go to university is cost. It is very expensive to go to a university out of your state or to a private. Even in state and local colleges and universities can be well out of reach for many who wish they could attend.

 

[Politesse]

How could you possibly know that?

It was what they said they do. And currently, the race of the applicant is already known, so if a school wanted to persecute white people, by just letting in black students, that mechanism already exists.

They aren't showing their work. I strongly suspect that this is based largely on, as it were, enumeration district. There's no way you actually could determine apparent race aside from asking directly, but they will use proxy data to make questionable guesses about the household.

Or they could look at the address of the applicant and do a Zillow search.

It doesn't matter what they "say they do" if there is no legal oversight on what they actually do. The thing about using existing data to discriminate on the basis of class or neighborhood is that it would be illegal if they were caught doing it, at least in most states. Creating a whole new category that sits outside of existing protections snd whose calculation is cloaked in secrecy is handing them an enormous gift. I think it is more likely that this will be used as a weapon against black students than for them. And there is no mechanism to prevent them from doing do .

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't like this idea at all. No one should be denied access or control over their own application packet, or selected for reasons they can't change or improve on in any way. Students of color are already routinely, overtly harassed by people like Derec, every day they go to class, because of the perception they got an invisible leg up. This will just make things worse, because the student themselves won't even know if its true or not.

While I don't agree with the harassment I saw plenty of examples of people of color getting things they shouldn't have in college and to a lesser degree in employment. (There were two black people in the office--a couple. He had done multiple things that should have gotten him fired, but the boss felt he couldn't fire him and keep her and that he couldn't fire every black in the office.)

Haven't talked to any students yet, but I bet you dollars to donuts that actual students of color and poor white students are not happy about this at all- this is upper class whites trying to make themselves look good by trampling over student rights and actual student experiences like a Humvee. Aside from being blatantly unethical, making the methods and results anonymous is a transparent attempt to skirt FERPA law (which governs student privacy in the US, and is the reason disclosure of race, sex, etc is always optional on college apllications now). The board will be sued over this, and I hope they are successfully sued and forced to publish what they've been up to.

Yeah, so much of this amounts to virtue signaling. Which, as usual, is backed by little actual virtue.

 

[SimpleDon]

While I don't agree with the harassment I saw plenty of examples of people of color getting things they shouldn't have in college and to a lesser degree in employment. (There were two black people in the office--a couple. He had done multiple things that should have gotten him fired, but the boss felt he couldn't fire him and keep her and that he couldn't fire every black in the office.)
....Yeah, so much of this amounts to virtue signaling. Which, as usual, is backed by little actual virtue.

And yet we hear no similar complaints against the largest group of sub-par applicants accepted into the so-called elite colleges. Applicants who don't have the SAT scores and academic achievements that are required of the others admitted, who don't even have the scores and achievements of the AA students admitted. I am referring to the legacy students, overwhelming white, upper class, wealthy and male. People like George W. Bush, who as president not only started a war by mistake but who came close to destroying the entire world's economy.

And lumped together with the sub-par legacy students we have to consider the students like Jared Kushner, our current poster child for the wisdom of the rules against nepotism, whose admittance was helped by his father donating a million dollars to Harvard.

Why isn't the right screaming about these undeserving students being accepted to these colleges? They by far outnumber the AA students accepted and as a group their qualifications are lower than the AA students accepted. Can you explain this obvious oversight shared by the right in general and you?

 

[SimpleDon]

The SAT people are just trying to preserve their business.

Their business has always been to provide admission departments of universities two numbers to use to screen applicants in a board brush. SAT scores establish a minimum threshold below which they will not consider anyone. It is left up to the universities how much weight that they put in the scores and there is no doubt that the SAT scores carry less weight than they did before. Some few colleges don't require any standardized tests. These trends will reduce the business of SAT people.

This new number of adversity is an attempt by the college board to provide a similar single number to provide a device to broadly establish levels of adversity for colleges who want to admit disadvantaged applicants. Last year only 50 of the more than 4,000 4 and 2-year colleges used these scores.

Bottom line, this is what it has always been, a tempest in a teapot brewed up to divide us against one another. It is in the best interest of the nation to educate children to the fullest extent possible. We are not doing this now in order to reduce taxes on the already rich resulting in the higher costs of going to college and public schools that fall short of what is needed both in college prep and in the trades. It is a very short-sighted thing to do but not too surprising because we are doing the same thing with our infrastructure for example.

The austerians tell us that we are passing on a great burden to our children in the form of the national debt*. (This is based on the misconception that the national debt is like household debt.) But the greatest burden is in not educating our children well.

* except for the debt caused by tax cuts for the rich and defense spending to appease the MIC.

 

[Derec]

Why isn't the right screaming about these undeserving students being accepted to these colleges? They by far outnumber the AA students accepted and as a group their qualifications are lower than the AA students accepted. Can you explain this obvious oversight shared by the right in general and you?

Do you have any evidence that legacy students outnumber those admitted due to racial preferences? My understanding is that number of legacy students is quite limited.

That said, why can't one be against both? However, one should be more outspoken about so-called "affirmative action" because the Left generally supports basing college/graduate school admissions on race. Being against legacy is far less controversial.

 

[Derec]

The SAT is simply trying to salvage something of its reputation. It has been well documented for decades that the SAT is a better measure of the parents’ socioeconomic status than it is of actual academic ability.

It has not been "documented". It has been claimed by those who, like you, want to base college admissions less of academic achievement and more on skin color.

Admissions very often already consider factors such as parental level of education, zip code (there isagreat deal of poverty in rural areas as well) and so on. Generally, they are aware of the reputation of the high school and other relevant programs the student had access to.

The only way reputation of the high school should be taken into account is if a school is known for grade inflation. A 4.0 doesn't mean much if it's equivalent to 3.5 in a more reputable school. The latter will prepare a student more for college than the former. Same goes for colleges. An organic chemistry class at say Emory will be more rigorous and cover more material than the ostensibly same class at say Clayton State University. Getting an A at Clayton is simply not the same as getting an A at Emory. Should medical schools then not prefer an Emory graduate over a CSU graduate all other things being equal?

The biggest issue for most students who wish to go to university is cost. It is very expensive to go to a university out of your state or to a private. Even in state and local colleges and universities can be well out of reach for many who wish they could attend.

The cost is getting ridiculous. But in-state public schools are usually affordable, esp. if you can take your core classes at a community college because those are pretty cheap. And unless we are talking about highly ranked schools like Emory, going private is usually not worth it anyway.

 

[Derec]

We know Derec is paranoid that this metric will be used to make certain no white person ever goes to college again, but really, are we going to use Derec as the measuring stick for reasoning?

First of all, it's not paranoia because we know many schools use race to discriminate against certain applicants.
Second, I suspect this will be used to sneak race in even in states where race-based discrimination has been banned, like California and Michigan.

 

[Bomb#20]

And yet we hear no similar complaints against the largest group of sub-par applicants accepted into the so-called elite colleges.

Athletes?

Applicants who don't have the SAT scores and academic achievements that are required of the others admitted, who don't even have the scores and achievements of the AA students admitted. I am referring to the legacy students, overwhelming white, upper class, wealthy and male. People like George W. Bush, who as president not only started a war by mistake but who came close to destroying the entire world's economy.

And lumped together with the sub-par legacy students we have to consider the students like Jared Kushner, our current poster child for the wisdom of the rules against nepotism, whose admittance was helped by his father donating a million dollars to Harvard.

Why isn't the right screaming about these undeserving students being accepted to these colleges? They by far outnumber the AA students accepted and as a group their qualifications are lower than the AA students accepted. Can you explain this obvious oversight shared by the right in general and you?

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Non-Discrimination in Federally-Assisted Program

"SEC. 601. No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, lack of parents who went to the same school, lack of a million dollars, lack of athletic ability, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Wow, Derec, why are you inserting race into everything where it isn't?

 

[Trausti]

The SAT (and ACT) was the one objective measure for admission; it did not rely on grade inflation, race/ethnic identity, socioeconomic status. It did not matter who you were or where you came from. Now, it appears this objective measure is to be debased as a sacrifice to the Great Awokening. Understandably, people don't like that.

 

[laughing dog]

The traditional SAT scores are unaffected by this new adversity score and no school is required to use it, so there are fact-driven reasons for the complaints and handwringing in this thread.

 

[southernhybrid]

Over 1000 colleges and universities have done away or made the SAT/ACT test optional. They have found that they have little relevancy to college performance or success in life. I think it's about time to get rid of standardized testing for college entrance. Time to move on to other criteria that better evaluate one's potential success in school.

https://www.fairtest.org/test-scores-do-not-equal-merit-executive-summary

Over 815 four-year colleges and universities across the U.S., acting on the belief that "test scores do not equal merit," do not use the SAT or ACT to make admissions decisions about a substantial number of their incoming freshmen classes. These institutions range widely in size and mission.

Schools that have made standardized tests optional for admissions are widely pleased with the results. Many report their applicant pools and enrolled classes have become more diverse without any loss in academic quality. "Test score optional" policies promote both equity and excellence.
Colleges and universities that have moved away from using standardized tests to make admissions decisions have done so for a variety of reasons, but all have concerns about the impact of overreliance on the tests. Some public universities have acted to deemphasize the SAT and ACT in the face of restrictions on affirmative action; a few are developing more flexible approaches to admissions in response to changes in the K-12 sector; many have found high school classroom performance to be a markedly superior way of forecasting academic success in college.
Lessons learned at the wide range of "test score-optional" schools can be applied to many other institutions.

Apparently, this is a movement that has been going on for over ten years. I was always one who did well on standardized tests, but I know plenty of people who are much smarter than I am, who don't do well on standardized tests. Imo, it's time to toss the relic known as the SAT in the dustbin of history.

 

[Politesse]

Over 1000 colleges and universities have done away or made the SAT/ACT test optional. They have found that they have little relevancy to college performance or success in life. I think it's about time to get rid of standardized testing for college entrance. Time to move on to other criteria that better evaluate one's potential success in school.

https://www.fairtest.org/test-scores-do-not-equal-merit-executive-summary

Over 815 four-year colleges and universities across the U.S., acting on the belief that "test scores do not equal merit," do not use the SAT or ACT to make admissions decisions about a substantial number of their incoming freshmen classes. These institutions range widely in size and mission.

Schools that have made standardized tests optional for admissions are widely pleased with the results. Many report their applicant pools and enrolled classes have become more diverse without any loss in academic quality. "Test score optional" policies promote both equity and excellence.
Colleges and universities that have moved away from using standardized tests to make admissions decisions have done so for a variety of reasons, but all have concerns about the impact of overreliance on the tests. Some public universities have acted to deemphasize the SAT and ACT in the face of restrictions on affirmative action; a few are developing more flexible approaches to admissions in response to changes in the K-12 sector; many have found high school classroom performance to be a markedly superior way of forecasting academic success in college.
Lessons learned at the wide range of "test score-optional" schools can be applied to many other institutions.

Apparently, this is a movement that has been going on for over ten years. I was always one who did well on standardized tests, but I know plenty of people who are much smarter than I am, who don't do well on standardized tests. Imo, it's time to toss the relic known as the SAT in the dustbin of history.

It just gets replaced by other poorly constructed evaluation techniques, though, unfortunately. A teacher understands that students are individuals, and that nearly all of them have the potential for greatness under the correct circumstances. An administrator wants a simple quantitative measure of the quality of their investments, the "magic number'' that tells them what they need to know without thinking about it.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I'm not really a fan of any sort of scoring beyond performance, but this is surprisingly nuanced. The one factor it doesn't include is race. It includes factors based on zip code and high school and family income. So a poor white guy from a high crime zip code and an inferior high school gets the same oppression score as a poor black guy from that same zip code and school. It looks like they were careful to not include race.

 

[Toni]

The SAT (and ACT) was the one objective measure for admission; it did not rely on grade inflation, race/ethnic identity, socioeconomic status. It did not matter who you were or where you came from. Now, it appears this objective measure is to be debased as a sacrifice to the Great Awokening. Understandably, people don't like that.

Unfortunately your assessment is incorrect. While it did not reflect grade inflation, it certainly did and does reflect socioeconomic status as well as racial/ethnic biases, however unintentional. Also despite the fact that there are and always have been those who scored very well despite being of lower socioeconomic status or racial/ethnic minority.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

While I don't agree with the harassment I saw plenty of examples of people of color getting things they shouldn't have in college and to a lesser degree in employment. (There were two black people in the office--a couple. He had done multiple things that should have gotten him fired, but the boss felt he couldn't fire him and keep her and that he couldn't fire every black in the office.)
....Yeah, so much of this amounts to virtue signaling. Which, as usual, is backed by little actual virtue.

And yet we hear no similar complaints against the largest group of sub-par applicants accepted into the so-called elite colleges. Applicants who don't have the SAT scores and academic achievements that are required of the others admitted, who don't even have the scores and achievements of the AA students admitted. I am referring to the legacy students, overwhelming white, upper class, wealthy and male. People like George W. Bush, who as president not only started a war by mistake but who came close to destroying the entire world's economy.

And lumped together with the sub-par legacy students we have to consider the students like Jared Kushner, our current poster child for the wisdom of the rules against nepotism, whose admittance was helped by his father donating a million dollars to Harvard.

Why isn't the right screaming about these undeserving students being accepted to these colleges? They by far outnumber the AA students accepted and as a group their qualifications are lower than the AA students accepted. Can you explain this obvious oversight shared by the right in general and you?

1) You're making a comparison without data--AA admits vs legacy admits.

2) You're forgetting that legacy admits bring an advantage to the school--donations. How do those donations (and the tuition the legacy students pay) compare to the cost of educating a student? If (and it's a definite conditional, I have seen no numbers on it) a legacy student on average brings in more than the total cost of educating a student the school can just admit more, nobody loses out. If they don't bring enough, they are a bad thing.