What is the source of your data?
If you mean the fall 2019 reader guidelines with descriptions of 1-5 academic ratings, they are available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.thecrimson.com/pdf/2018/10/29/1333554.pdf . The rest of the data is from the lawsuit – Arcidiacono analysis (odds ratio for change in academic rating), Card analysis (loss of r^2 from removing specific components), and Harvard internal analysis (70% r^2 stat).
Thank you for clarifying that the data analyses you posted is from Arcidiacono.
In this report the only 1-5 scale I see are in Overall and Academics.
The scale is 1-6 for ECs (1-6 not a straight line/descending scale qualitatively speaking) and Athletics (1-6 not a straight descending scale qualitatively speaking, note #4 in particular specifically states it is not a negative.)
Personal category is a 4 point scale (unless one includes the 3+. Note that plusses and minuses are allowed for any rating in any category.) School support is a 1-9 scale.
I don’t know if Harvard used the same admissions process as it did during the years of the lawsuit/what Arcidiacono analyzed (I do see that he references a 1-5 scale and on table 3.1 combines data.)
Regarding the lawsuit data we are at the point where that is nothing more than snapshot in time in a process for one school, and one that has likely evolved a great deal (TO, changing institutional priorities, etc)…meaning making meaningful conclusions to today using that data is a reach (sticking with college admissions terms.)
CB financials are public information (see Form 990), and if employees are making bank, the Board’s Comp Comte approved.
My comment said, “The quote I listed above for the 1-5 academic rating SAT groupings was from the admission reader guidelines for fall 2019 – just before COVID. They’ve been using this type of 1 to ~5 shorthand rating system for many decades” I mentioned 1 to 5 for academics and 1 to ~5 for others, meaning it could be 1 to 4 or 1 to 6.
The regression analysis found the same. It found that some of the lowest numbers were not a negative compared to the typical 3 rating, in non-academic categories. For example, the regression analysis found an EC of 5 was considered to be a positive compared to 3 for chance of admission, which is described as:
“Substantial commitment outside of conventional extracurricular activities such as
family obligations or term-time work (should be included with other e/c to boost the
rating or left as a “5” if it is more representative of the student’s commitment).”
The areas of the document highlighted in yellow are the primary ones that changed since the reader guidelines used during the lawsuit period, which can also be found online. The changes primarily related to the personal rating, instructing readers that personal rating is not synonymous with extroversion and such.
I have pretty good insight that alumni interviewers were still using a 1-4 rating for the Class of 2028.
When we applied to schools, S24 only submitted scores to certain schools based on 2018-2020 CDS data. The 25th percentile was much lower than post-pandemic score reporting.
I saw similar formulas on CollegeVine. It helped us during the ‘24 application process.
Comp committee…that is a good one. Wonder who is on that one? $1 million salaries. Flying first class. $200MM in assets sitting outside the US in offshore accounts. I am shocked there has not been a full blow investigation yet.
You have mentioned this 2x. So what is your point? CB sells services around the world. Of course, they will have local bank accounts in local currency. Perhaps they need to keep certain assets in country for local regulations? For local tax purposes? The amount may not be nefarious. Regardless, again, they are not hiding the amount, as this is public information.
By law, they are independent directors, unpaid by the nonprofit. Do you have information to the contrary?
CB is chartered in NYS, so under the state AG Letitia James who has authority to conduct any investigation.
They are a not for profit and accumulating a $200M+ surplus offshore accounts. Think about that. That is your tax dollars that are getting fleeced. Why? Because not only are they avoiding US taxes but also receiving public funding. Your tax dollars are paying for those 1st class trips and all those exorbitant salaries. Most importantly, there is no transparency on what they are doing with the personal data of students, including minors.
I think the concern here is not that the College Board has accounts in foreign countries, but that most of the offshore accounts were in places like the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Mauritius. Don’t think there are a lot of students in these locations using College Board services.
A few years back, an article on this, “Does College Board Deserve Public Subsidies?” was written by Richard Phelps of Nonpartisan Education Review.
I found the article. Thank you. But I have a different take on teh read:
The funds are primarily in a for-profit arm of CB, which means it is subject to taxes. However, that investment had run losses, so it had no gains. It seems to me that any beef should be with US tax law which allows CB to net losses against its income, resulting in zero tax.
I get it, CB has billions, under a 501c3 wrapper. So do the highly selective colleges. So does the Red Cross. Again, that is allowed under US tax law. Now, if one wants to make the argument that these non-profits should start paying taxes, that is a political position (and I woudl suppose belongs in the Political forum).
So if the CB has a profit arm, do you not see the immense issue this is and inherent conflict of interest this is? They are taking advantage of the educational system, funneling the money out of the country (where no one really knows where), and paying execs ridiculous salaries. And please don’t compare to the American Red Cross which actually helps people. They deserve no public money. None. Which is why, back to the original point about the SATs, makes it interesting that the schools with the wealthiest student populations suddenly want a return to the SATs.
No, I don’t. Many non-profits have a for-profit arm/division/subsidiary. In fact, the controlling case was against the non-profit NYU, which used to run a food hall that was open to the public, both students and non-students alike. SCOTUS ruled that bcos the food hall open to the public and was non-educational in nature, that exceeded the College’s non-profit scope and was an unrelated business subject to taxes. Voila, NYU now has a for-profit arm.
In CB’s case, if they plow all of the investment earnings back to support the related educational mission…
Show me. How can you be building a massive surplus of a quarter of a billion dollars if you are reinvesting? You are comparing running a cafeteria at a university with a billion dollar empire with no transparency, at all! By chance are you affiliated in any way with the CB?
They are generating a ton of cash because they have two monopolies (AP tests and CSS Profile), and another market leading business (SAT). Arguably, they are reinvesting, for example overhauling the SAT to the new digital test, and adding AP classes (most recent AP pre-calc and AP African American studies.)
With that said, I am not a fan of CB or David Coleman. When I look at the overwhelming number of issues with K-12 education, my dislike of CB probably wouldn’t even register in the top 100 things that I would advocate change for. YMMV of course.
No, not affiliated in any way with CB or any testing company for that matter. Just a customer when I was a teenager, and a parent of two high school kids who took both the SAT & ACT. I was also a CFO at a multi-million dollar non-profit.
(But for further disclosure, I was one of those kids who was born in the projects, attended a public HS which had more shop offerings than college prep classes – never heard of AP — but was able to self-study a few days for the SAT, easily raising my score 300 points. (back in the dark ages before re-centering 2x)
That said, discussing CB’s tax status is getting way beyond the idea of this thread (I think), which is standardized testing, which should also include the ACT.
well said!
Can you please clarify what you are implying in your last sentence? I am not certain how the two topics are related: 1) CB being a not-for-profit that makes money, and 2) schools with wealthy student populations suddenly wanting a return to the SATs.