
What Happens if SAT Scores Consider Adversity? - alistairSH
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-happens-if-sat-scores-consider-adversity-11574773201?mod=rsswn
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remarkEon
Interesting plots. What would actually happen though is that anxious elites
would attempt to game the adversity system, doing things like maintaining an
address in a “distressed” neighborhood for how ever long it takes to matter.
The moral-ethical considerations aside (we’re actually going to _punish_ or
reward the children for the decisions the parents make?), this is just going
to be abused. I’m skeptical it would even work as intended. Putting students
into schools that they’re not academically prepared to be at because they had
a rough time growing up sounds like setting them up for continued failure.

I also didn’t know UC was considering dropping the SAT all together. You know
who will be the loudest cheerleaders for that? The same anxious elites that
would move to a crappy neighborhood to boost their kid’s SAT score. Dropping
the closest proxy we have for future academic performance (and a darn good one
at that) would make everyone run for the side-door entrances to these
institutions - and the back door will get a lot more lucrative. What a shame.

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SolaceQuantum
_" Dropping the closest proxy we have for future academic performance (and a
darn good one at that)"_

I'm actually super not educated in this- do you have proof that good SAT score
is a strong predictor of good academic performance, and vice versa? (The vice
versa is the most important part to me.)

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polski-g
SAT is a proxy for IQ, which is a good predictor for life success, and that
includes academic performance.

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threatofrain
That sounds like we should just test for IQ.

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polski-g
Employers do:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_test)

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tachyonbeam
I hope that this isn't hinting at boosting SAT scores based on such a measure,
because the obvious problem here is that you can't possibly objectively
measure how much adversity a child was exposed to. Some schools are poorer
than others, that's for sure, but some of the kids from rich schools are
queer, getting bullied, or getting chronically abused by alcoholic or mentally
ill parents at home. There's a lot of suffering out there that is not visible,
not spoken about, and not identified by race, place of birth or skin color.

IMO, the best way to avoid issues like this would be to ban private schools,
and make sure all schools have the same amount of funding per student. In
other words, target the poverty problem directly, don't try to adjust SAT
scores based on some guestimate of how oppressed you think a person might have
been.

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OCASM
No, communism isn't the answer. Some people having an edge over others is not
an issue in the first place.

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jamescostian
This isn't someone having an edge over someone else because they worked for
it, took a risk for it, or earned it in any way. It's because they had
different parents - capitalism is about rewarding work, risk, etc not having
parents who can afford to send you to a better school.

Communism pretends to seek equality at all times for all, but this is only
proposing a more equal start for all, and still allows some to do better than
others. Are you sure authoritarianism isn't the word you were looking for?

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gfodor
A large part of the reason capitalism works is not because people want to make
a better life for themselves, but because they want to make a better life for
their kids. In a system where a parent can not work hard to increase the
likelihood of their children’s’ success in life, likely the system would
collapse. (This doesn’t mean that schools shouldn’t become more socialized,
I’m pointing out the flaw in the argument that capitalism is tied to
individual benefit. For any parent, their individual benefit takes a back seat
to that of their kids.)

~~~
jamescostian
You're right about the flaw in tying capitalism to individual benefit,
however, don't those parents also appreciate the love a not-so-fortunate
parent has for their own child? If they want such great opportunities for
their child, why wouldn't they want the same for other children? Capitalists
who are so selfless for their own offspring should also feel the same about
others, right?

I guess it's just hard for me to imagine someone who loves their child so much
but doesn't care enough about how much someone less fortunate would care about
their child. Perhaps it's because I'm not a parent

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CapmCrackaWaka
I work in this space, and this study is getting a lot of attention. At the end
of the day, colleges don't care. They have their pell eligibility quotas,
their ethnicity ratio considerations, net tuition revenue requirements, etc
etc.

Their objective is to maximize their reputation - if they find students with
lower SAT scores from poorer neighborhoods become more successful in their
careers and donate more money/become notable figures/contribute more to
academic research, that's who they will admit (given the profitability with
financial aid and federal incentives).

Colleges aren't going to change anything based on this study, however it does
enrage the wealthy white families and rally the poor black ones with the topic
of racial/financial adversity, so it's bound to get a lot of attention.

~~~
remarkEon
I think you’re right, universities are reputation maximizers - but so are
parents and students, and I’m not so sure they think of the university as
another rational actor in the same vein as themselves. The more I think about
it the more I’m starting to believe that the only winning move is not to play.

~~~
sabujp
depends on what you're trying to become, if you want to be a doctor it's still
required

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nkkollaw
Is adversity always bad? Many times adversity creates more motivated people.
That's why so many successful companies are created by smart immigrants, and
many times spoiled rich kids do drugs and end up losing all the money they
inherit.

Regardless, when we stop looking at merit to judge people's work, we get into
a very dangerous territory.

Identity politics is cancer.

~~~
alphabettsy
The problem is that average poor and middle-class kids don’t make it into
college at anywhere near the rates wealthy kids do and it has almost nothing
to do with their capability.

There are a lot of capable people that will never have the same opportunities
just by lottery of birth. It’s true they could try to be exceptional, but
everyone can’t be and that’s a ridiculous way to attack poverty.

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cobookman
Socioeconomic mobility doesn’t happen overnight.

Maybe the poor kid goes to a trade school moving up from poor to upper middle
class.

The kid of said person would have a better start...repeat the cycle and after
just 2-3 generations you have a Harvard/Stanford graduate

This is how many Jews and Asians moved up from being broke poor

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SolaceQuantum
_" Maybe the poor kid goes to a trade school moving up from poor to upper
middle class."_

Isn't mobility actually decreasing?

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alistairSH
In the US, yes. Income mobility is down both over time and relative to other
Western nations.

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pcurve
Some schools already consider geographically correlated socio-economic
background into evaluation criteria. It's not really up to college board to
decide this, though I'm sure they have sizable empirical data.

I'm afraid it will just be one more way for unscrupulous people to game the
system.

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mywacaday
Are there any studies post college to see if there is any correlation between
adverse backgrounds and success post college?

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kevindong
The NY Times has something similar to what you (see the very bottom of the
page):
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-y...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/make-
your-own-mobility-animation.html)

That graphic lets you compare and contrast between various gender/race and
their income mobility.

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pcurve
good lord, the downward draft for black folks are hard.

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forgotmypwd123
What's happens to the title?

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dang
Fixed now.

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tobib
Off topic, I'm wondering, do people on here tend to have subscriptions to
sites like wsj.com that are behind a paywall or is there a known way to get
past it without one that I just don't know about?

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gnicholas
These days, twitter seems like a reliable way in. Just search the article url.

