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New College Board tool helps admissions officers

Dave_BerryDave_Berry CC Admissions Expert Posts: 2,823 Senior Member
in College Admissions
"Yale was one of about 15 schools over the past year that participated in the pilot run of 'Environmental Dashboard,' a new tool from The College Board that allows admissions officers to get more context for each application they read.

The dashboard shows three main data points for all domestic applicants, according to Connie Betterton, The College Board’s vice president for higher education access and strategy. Two 'measures of disadvantage' are displayed — for the student’s neighbourhood and high school, respectively. The dashboard also shows the student’s standardized test scores in the context of their schools rather than giving national percentiles." ...

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/09/21/new-college-board-tool-helps-admissions-officers/
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Replies to: New College Board tool helps admissions officers

  • LindagafLindagaf Registered User Posts: 8,735 Senior Member
    Very interesting. I tried to find which colleges will be using this tool for the upcoming cycle, but had no luck. If anyone can find that info, please share. 60 colleges will be using it in this cycle.
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  • bopperbopper Forum Champion CWRU Posts: 12,741 Forum Champion
    @Ap0state would those middle class kids be able to afford Yale anyway?
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  • Ap0stateAp0state Registered User Posts: 52 Junior Member
    edited September 2018
    Yale is up there on giving generous financial aid. I believe Yale student with less than $65k family income pays $0 in tuition. Also, Yale is one of the handful that has no loan financial aid policy. I remember reading somewhere of someone who crunched numbers and found that the out-of-pocket cost would be lower when attending Yale than Penn State, a state school. So, yes, I'd say middle class kids would be able to afford Yale fine.
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  • NJWrestlingmomNJWrestlingmom Registered User Posts: 848 Member
    Under $65k isn't middle class where I live.
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  • jzducoljzducol Registered User Posts: 617 Member
    Keep in mind that a family with $165k income pays no tuition at Yale---that is like receiving $51k grant. Only those over $265k income are full pay.
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  • suzyQ7suzyQ7 Registered User Posts: 3,766 Senior Member
    Curious how this will work since it was created by CB. What if your student took ACT instead? What if your student sat for the SAT but did not submit those scores since they did better on ACT? If this is not connected with common app info (where the student selects which testing company they are going with), not sure how it will work.
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  • Mwfan1921Mwfan1921 Registered User Posts: 1,170 Senior Member
    edited September 2018
    I find this very interesting as well. I share the concerns with @suzyQ7 whether CollegeBoard will show SAT scores of students who did not send those scores to X college on this report. This document says that the SAT scores will be input by school admissions dept (p.4, last bullet point). https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/professionals/data-driven-models-to-understand-environmental-context.pdf

    So, if a college doesn't have SAT scores thru either the student self-reporting scores, or sending scores directly from CollegeBoard, it seems that schools subscribing to this environmental dashboard offering would not see student SAT scores. Still, makes me nervous. Also, CollegeBoard would lose out on revenues if students didn't have to send their scores individually to colleges, and certainly CB is already experiencing revenue declines in this area as many, many schools allow self-reported scores now (and increasing every year), with a paid CollegeBoard score report sent only upon matriculation to a student's chosen college.

    This is a more detailed report on this CollegeBoard offering, http://cerpp.uscrossier.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/5.2-Perfetto-Systematic-ID-of-Disadvantage.pdf

    Perhaps it will help AOs make determinations of students who have experienced hardships, but I expect some colleges will decide which segments they will accept students from, and which they won't. See page 34 of the report. It will be interesting to see how (or if) this product is well received by colleges. It represents another way colleges are using data to make admissions decisions, many of which students (and families) can not control, or even know.
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  • ucbalumnusucbalumnus Registered User Posts: 74,452 Senior Member
    NJWrestlingmom wrote:
    Under $65k isn't middle class where I live

    $65k is lower than the NJ median household income of $76k, but not so much lower that it is "poor".
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  • knightcubknightcub Registered User Posts: 169 Junior Member
    A lot of schools do not reveal rankings to colleges and for good reason, why harm half or more of your students. This gives colleges a tool to rank within a school. My initial reaction is that for schools with a student population that is strong, relative to national averages, even at the bottom of a class this could be harmful.
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  • dadof2ddadof2d Registered User Posts: 145 Junior Member
    My guess is that the tool may be a response to the number colleges that are going test optional. One of the factors sometimes cited in going test optional is the correlation between socioeconomic status and standardized test scores. This tool will allow schools to adjust for socioeconomic status and opportunity, using an “adversity index”. The goal is to not only to help colleges make better admissions decisions, but to keep them using standardized test scores in the admission process.
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  • Ap0stateAp0state Registered User Posts: 52 Junior Member
    edited September 2018
    The whole move away from test scores just boggles my mind. As a poor kid who couldn't afford to do EC activities, SAT scores and GPA were the only ways I could tangibly show that I was smart and hard working, that I was worthy of higher learning. Today's poor kids don't have to show that they are smart now to get into colleges?
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  • melvin123melvin123 Registered User Posts: 1,394 Senior Member
    I’m curious how CB will actually implement this. I used to live in a zip code that had both upper middle class and extremely poor. Surely they don’t do a street by street analysis. That same zip code had 3 elementary schools, 1 of which is where the upper middle class kids went. In HS kid’s are separated out by gen ed, honors, AP, and unsurprisingly almost no UMC kids were in gen ed. What index number would a kid who went to the other 2 elementary schools get? And I’m also curious what factors (and the weight) are included in forming high numbers. Going back to that example, most lower income kids come from immigrant families where English is not spoken in the home and many of those parents have the equivalent of a 5th grade education, but there is a strong sense of family and community and the crime rate is low. Compare that to a community near where I live now of equally low SES but high single parent households and parent has a HS degree but community has a high violence rate. What number would be assigned to that situation?

    On the flip side, for schools that say they are need blind, theyll have to get someone to pre-screen apps and only write high numbers on the apps. Otherwise it’s hard to unsee the low number (and presumed ability to pay).

    (Hope I got the high/low right).
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  • ninakatarinaninakatarina Registered User Posts: 1,514 Senior Member
    Is there a way to see my kid's school's scores on this, or is that something that you have to pay for the service in order to see? It would be good to see how our local school measures up.
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  • CenterCenter Registered User Posts: 2,270 Senior Member
    I wonder how they will evaluate a kid from Newark NJ who is at Andover on a full ride? Will the Andover component cancel out the Newark component?
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