This is absurd. First, the same data is already used by colleges. So what is the true goal or point of the additional test points? The only logical answer is to force colleges to double the value of the extra weight that is already given to those factors. That’s fine, but it seems artificial in the way the SAT is doing it – by hiding extra points in a score. Second, assuming this increases diversity enrollment, who loses? On first glance, I assumed it was all white and Asian kids. But that’s not accurate. The elite (high donors, famous, legacies) will still get their guaranteed preferences. The losers (yes, there ARE losers because the number of spots is finite) are the “regular” hard working smart white and Asian kids. If these ELITE schools and the SAT really cared about leveling the playing field, they would end donor and legacy preferences. That would naturally and automatically increase the available spots for UR minorities and “regular” kids. These limousine liberals will NEVER give up their kids’ preferential spots at the Ivies are more than willing to create more spots for UR minorities but only at the expense of someone else’s kids.
@Mwfan1921
Yale, a college that permits students to self-report test scores, was cited in the article:
Yale University was one of the schools that tried using the adversity scores as it worked to increase socioeconomic diversity on its campus. Jeremiah Quinlan, the school’s dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Wall Street Journal that Yale has nearly doubled the number of low-income students and those who are first in their families to attend college to about 20% of new students.
“This (adversity score) is literally affecting every application we look at,” Quinlan told the Journal. “It has been a part of the success story to help diversify our freshman class.”
So the College Board is sharing information with colleges about the applicants without the applicants’ knowledge or consent.
How can Yale claim to be “need-blind” when this adversity score was used in evaluating every applicant?
@shuttlebus Yes, I am familiar with how Yale used these scores, which are not known by the students. Yale did not seem to have direct access to the students’ collegeboard accounts though.
We have heard from 3 universities—
From the wsj article (and these quotes are available all over news stories today, so I don’t think this is against TOS):
Like someone else already mentioned:
Isn’t the essay supposed to be about this stuff? How is everything in life supposed to be equal? My kid just lost an internship to diversity. So unfair.
^^And doesn’t each HS send a school profile with the student’s transcript? And they have regional reps that keep track of this info as well. Not to mention programs like Questbridge and Posse Scholar which identify low SES high achieving kids. Sounds like the colleges want to outsource doing their homework.
Posse does identify some low SES students, but being low SES is not a Posse requirement as it is in Questbridge
I’m not so sure. College Board probably has access to more data than these colleges. In addition, CSS Profile is also a unit of College Board. One wonders whether the Adversity Score is a way to channel some of that FA data to the admission offices of the supposedly need-blind schools.
“Get to race without using race” And “boosting non-white enrollment” That’s all about race. Are the colleges trying to claim they don’t know the race of the applicants they’re reviewing and they need this score to tell them?
I think there might be some misunderstanding about the data that is being used by some in this thread. It does not appear that any personal data is being used to calculate the Adversity Score. It’s all based on Census tract or zip code aggregate data from gov’t sources depending on what’s available. So basically any 2 kids from the same neighborhood (census tract) are going to have the same Adversity score. So it’s not really a personal adversity score but more of an environmental score. The kid’s application should highlight any personal adversity.
The reality is that there a lot of kids that are growing up in really adverse conditions. My D certainly did not but she did go to school with plenty that did. As I told her back when she was a HS senior that she and her friends should be proud of their accomplishments in getting accepted/attending highly selective schools but some of her classmates that would be attending a school like West Chester had a bigger accomplishments.
As if the admissions decision process weren’t already opaque and mysterious enough, College Board just dreamed up a new way to make it even murkier.
“Who else is moving to Compton this summer?”
That’s what I predict. One more factor to game.
If people were willing to pay big bribes and commit elaborate frauds and felonies to get their kids into high end schools, establishing a fake address in a poor neighborhood will be a no-brainer.
Looks like the College Board just figured out how to solve k-12 school desegregation through voluntary means.
Honestly this is one of the craziest things ever. I thought the College Board administered tests. I guess since they failed miserably at that they need to throw the attention some place else. Why don’t they go focus on their core job and do it correctly. Throwing attention to another issue is not their job. They need to pack up and get out from behind the “non profit” claim. They are the problem, not the solution.
What about internationals taking the test? Does CB report their demographics? Does it matter if they take it overseas or come to the US to take the test?
That is so true! How is this even close to being fair? If every test taker isn’t in this mix then it doesn’t work given the scoring.
@Scipio Establishing a fake address (or just buying a cheap home) in a poor neighborhood would be easy; however, if you tie the score to the high school the student attends, that seems like a more difficult thing to falsify.
This information is not “about the students” but the high school per the article below. How does College Board figure out factors like family stability? And, how are magnet schools, charter schools, private schools and boarding schools evaluated when they draw from non-contiguous neighborhoods. This data needs to be transparent to parents and students, so they can provide feedback.
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/05/17/college-board-will-add-adversity-score-everyone-taking-sat?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=fc59b6bf61-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-fc59b6bf61-234499681&mc_cid=fc59b6bf61&mc_eid=55abaaf651
So the CB wants to address adversity? How about bolstering scores for students who experienced one of the following while prepping or taking the SAT:
- illness/death of a parent or sibling
- living with a physical or psychological disability
- physical bullying, cyber-bullying
- abusive parent(s)
- drug or alcohol addiction
- parents going through a divorce or separation
I would argue that these situations have far more traumatic impact on an SAT score than the societal & socio-economic situations the CB deemed to be adverse. The situations above know no color, gender or status.
I find it interesting that some people are so outraged by taking “adversity” into account but other “suspect classification groups”, such as gender parity, is used all the time in college admissions without concern:
“Colleges often not only want a gender-balanced freshman class, but also strive to achieve gender parity within various academic departments, experts add. So students with a genuine interest and impressive achievements in an academic discipline where their gender has historically been in the minority often have an edge (in admissions), experts suggest” (US News November 2, 2018).
Said another way, MIT could easily form a freshman class of excellent appllcants that were 95% male & 5% female, but there is an active process in place to make sure the entering class in almost 50/50 male/female. This is not by accident as MIT wants a diverse study body of equal men and women in their classes.