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    Joined: Mar 2013
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    While I personally think that only academic merit is the fairest system I can see how this may make admissions fairer.

    It will not allow kids in preferred demographic groups with executive parents who are currently enjoying all the advantages of an upper-middle/upper class upbringing from claiming ‘hardship’ due to their demographics.

    It may also allow rust belt/rural poor white kids a better chance than they currently have. Or kids of uneducated immigrant parents both working multiple minimum wage jobs to try to get better lives for their offspring (especially if East Asian) to have better chances of admission.

    In short it might allow kids whose circumstances have genuinely held them back to have a better chance.

    Of course - it probably will not.

    Last edited by madeinuk; 05/17/19 03:06 PM.

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    doesn't this open the door for cheating? Wealthy people renting apts in really bad neighborhoods? Or is it all about the school they are attending? Because I am not sure how that works. In Manhattan, you can have a horrible high school in a really nice zip. You still have some projects in that zip and kids in the projects that don't have involved parents who just go through the system could end up at that horrible high school, end up with a decent SAT but not the adversity index. Seems bizarre to me how it actually works. I think it works for some but all kids that should benefit.

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    Originally Posted by Wren
    doesn't this open the door for cheating? Wealthy people renting apts in really bad neighborhoods? Or is it all about the school they are attending?
    According to the College Board presentation Environmental Context Dashboard: A Scalable, Systematic Approach to Educational Disadvantage (p11), the components of the adversity score are as follows:

    (1) Put a student’s achievement on the SAT and AP in the context of
    their high school:
    Scores in Context

    SAT Scores
    • Range scores for graduates at the high school
    • Averages for students enrolling in college
    • Share of students taking the SAT

    AP Opportunity
    • AP course availability
    • AP participation
    • Average number of AP exams taken at the high
    school
    • Average AP score

    (2) Measures of the environment a student has faced given where they live and learn
    Neighborhood and High School Adversity Measures
    • College going behavior
    • Crime risk (neighborhood only)
    • Family stability
    • Educational attainment
    • Housing stability
    • Median family income

    The data sources (p12) are

    National Data

    American Community Survey
    • Median Income
    • Single Parent
    • Education Level, ESL
    • Housing statistics

    FBI Crime Statistics

    College Board Data
    • College going behavior
    • SAT achievement
    • % Free and Reduce Lunch
    • AP Opportunity
    • Educational Neighborhoods

    Given this data, they then

    2. Combine appropriate measures to generate:
    • Neighborhood adversity values at the Census Tract Level
    • High School adversity values for each high school

    Then they

    3. Calculate Overall Adversity for each student
    A student is tagged with the adversity measures for their high school and neighborhood, which are averaged to create a nationally normed measure between 0 and 100.

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    Thanks, Bostonian. This is the most detail I have read about what is actually being used to determine the score.

    Personally, I think the data points about the high school are really important. We are very aware that our school environment was a huge advantage. There are lots of offerings, they are essentially available to any student, and very well-taught. Kids do well on testing here, and not just the exceptional kids. The peer group, while not always a perfect fit for our kids, was an advantage as well. We know this, and frankly it is hard to read stories of kids who just don’t have the courses available, or who can’t take them because of some capricious policy or other obstacle. They have a disadvantage at the point of admission, but also when they actually matriculate. This is why we put up with a school that had so many frustrations, honestly.

    I guess I am surprised that this information is not already known to colleges- I know counselors have to submit a school profile, but maybe this metric is not as good as it sounds? We have been in college info sessions where the presenter asked the room how many people had read their high school’s profile, and we were in a striking minority- many people seemed not to know the term. Which makes me think maybe the schools or counselors aren’t really taking it very seriously, It should be available data, but maybe it’s not being done well. Or maybe people just don’t want to be made aware of their relative privilege.

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    After reading college confidential acceptances at Harvard, it seems that they seem to be very aware of these factors. There are kids who were first time college in the family, african american, without any big hooks getting in with scores on SAT in the 1450 range. So they must have some ideas on this or perhaps they were one of the early test schools to get these. Hence, why it would be difficult in the current law suit to go just on merit/scores.

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    The College Board now has two pages about the Adversity Score, one of them cited in a New York Times article Your Questions about the New Adversity Score on the SAT, Answered.

    ...

    Among the scholars who consulted for the College Board was Richard D. Kahlenberg, a fellow at the Century Foundation and a proponent of class-based affirmative action. He said he would like to see the College Board tool evolve to also include information on a student’s individual family.

    Environmental Context Dashboard
    The Environmental Context Dashboard is a new admissions tool that allows colleges to incorporate context into their admissions process in a data-driven, consistent way. The Dashboard includes:

    SAT Scores in context: Students' SAT scores can be seen within the context of the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile of SAT scores from their high school.
    Contextual data on the student’s neighborhood and high school: Including typical family income, family structure, educational attainment, housing stability, and crime.
    Information on the high school: Including AP opportunity at the school (average number of AP Exams taken, average AP score from that HS); percentage of students who meet federal eligibility criteria for free and reduced-price lunch; rurality/urbanicity; and senior class size.

    ...

    More detail is at Detailed Data Description
    We want to make sure students, families, educators, and admissions officers have information about what data is included in the Environmental Context Dashboard and where the data comes from. The robust data included in the Dashboard shines a light on students who have demonstrated resourcefulness to overcome challenges and achieve more with less.

    The Dashboard has three components:

    SAT scores in context: Student’s SAT scores can be seen within the context of the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile of SAT scores from the student’s high school (3-year average). The SAT score is the only piece of student-specific information admissions officers see in the Dashboard.
    Information on the high school: Including senior class size; percentage of students who meet federal eligibility criteria for free and reduced-price lunch; rurality/urbanicity; and average first-year SAT score of colleges students from that high school attend, the percentage of seniors taking an AP Exam, average number of AP Exams taken, average AP score from that high school, and the number of unique AP Exams administered at that high school (3-year average).
    Contextual data on the neighborhood and high school environment: The context data includes two measures—neighborhood and high school environment—calculated using data drawn from a combination of publicly available sources (e.g., NCES and U.S. Census Bureau), and aggregated College Board data.

    All data is aggregate and based on census tracts. Here’s what’s included:

    Neighborhood measure comprised of income, family structure, housing, educational attainment, and likelihood of being a victim of a crime High school measure comprised of income, family structure, housing, and educational attainment
    Median family income
    Percentage of all households in poverty (poverty rate)
    Percentage of families with children in poverty
    Percentage of households with food stamps
    Percentage of families that are single-parent families with children and in poverty
    Percentage of families that are single-parent families with children
    Percentage of housing units that are rental
    Percentage of housing units that are vacant
    Rent as a percentage of income
    Percentage of adults with less than a 4-year college degree
    Percentage of adults with less than a high school diploma
    Percentage of adults with agriculture jobs
    Percentage of adults with nonprofessional jobs
    Percentage unemployed
    College-going behavior
    Probability of being a victim of a crime
    Median family income
    Percentage of all households in poverty (poverty rate)
    Percentage of families with children in poverty
    Percentage of households with food stamps
    Percentage of families that are single-parent families with children and in poverty
    Percentage of families that are single-parent families with children
    Percentage of housing units that are rental
    Percentage of housing units that are vacant
    Rent as a percentage of income
    Percentage of adults with less than a 4-year college degree
    Percentage of adults with less than a high school diploma
    Percentage of adults with agriculture jobs
    Percentage of adults with nonprofessional jobs
    Percentage unemployed
    College-going behavior
    The family, educational, and housing measures are based on a factor analysis of data from the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau. Neighborhood data is based on census tracts. High school data is based on all census tracts represented in a given high school.

    All students living in the same census tract will have the same neighborhood data and all students attending the same high school will have the same high school data.
    The neighborhood and high school measures are percentiles between 1 and 100 with a flat distribution, with 1 corresponding to the least disadvantaged and 100 to the most disadvantaged.
    The neighborhood and high school measures are available as percentiles normed at both the national and state levels.

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    from CNN:
    This metric translates students into a set of crunched numbers that make anyone attending the same school and living in the same neighborhood look similar; the only adverse factors incorporated by the College Board that are tethered to an applicant's unique individual circumstances are those related to family situation, such as coming from a single-parent household, whether or not English is a second language and parental educational background. It's worth noting that even this information doesn't show up on sample dashboards the Board has released; the scoring methodology behind it is unclear, and underlying information is presumably provided on a voluntary basis, and is thus gameable.
    Also absent from the College Board's calculations of adversity are the ones that are at the seething center of the affirmative action wars: Race and ethnicity.
    In all the quotes from proponents of the new score, race and ethnicity are pointedly avoided, replaced with mentions of socioeconomic status, geography, military family status and generalized "hardship." In short, with this score, the anti-affirmative action forces have won a major battle to replace the goal of boosting diversity with that of reducing adversity.

    Does my kid, who lost a parent at age 7, get an adversity score? I understand it is a combination of factors but does everyone participate so that you get some? There are projects on the other side of the road of all the expensive apts and condos in Riverside south in NYC. So you would come from the same zip. And if you are filling out the info, are there checks if you say your family income is less than 50K per annum?

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    also, IB schools don't always offer AP courses, right?

    Are those schools, even if they are private, exclusive rated lower on the adversity because of a lack of AP courses?

    Reading several articles and it looks like the top, when the students have great scores, have legacy and great extracurriculars and the bottom with adversity benefit from the system but the middle is the one that misses out. If you are in the bulky middle class and your kid goes to a really good school has great scores and lots of AP, will be in the losing group.

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    I always believed that going to a poorly rated school was bad for a student's admissions chances as they likely weren't as well prepared and a high class rank was less impressive because the competition wasn't as stiff. Now that's being flipped?

    I live in Texas and we already have automatic college admissions for the top 10% of students in their high school class to any public university in Texas (except for UT where it's top 6%). With this additional policy, going to a "good" high school isn't looking all that appealing. That in addition to lack of transparency with students in regard to their score as well as concerns for accuracy make this seem like a really bad idea.

    My own particular circumstance is one in which my child's adversity level will be overestimated. We make double the median income of our census tract and are more educated. Our son will attend a lower rated (more poverty, worse scores) high school than the one he is zoned to because he's in a gifted magnet program that goes to that school along with regular students. The only thing it's going to score really well on is that they offer a lot of AP classes.

    Why can't college admissions officers get a general idea of environment on their own? Why are the writers of the SAT getting involved in something that goes beyond their test? And have people forgotten that income is associated with intelligence? Not all of the score differences between wealthy and poor students are a result of privilege.

    Last edited by Appleton; 05/20/19 12:15 AM.
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    Originally Posted by Appleton
    I always believed that going to a poorly rated school was bad for a student's admissions chances as they likely weren't as well prepared and a high class rank was less impressive because the competition wasn't as stiff. Now that's being flipped?
    It may never have been true, according to a 2005 paper

    The Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class Rank, and Elite College Admission
    Abstract
    In this article, the authors test a “frog-pond” model of elite college admission proposed by Attewell, operationalizing high school academic context as the secondary school-average SAT score and number of Advanced Placement tests per high school senior. Data on more than 45,000 applications to three elite universities show that a high school's academic environment has a negative effect on college admission, controlling for individual students' scholastic ability. A given applicant's chances of being accepted are reduced if he or she comes from a high school with relatively more highly talented students, that is, if the applicant is a small frog in a big pond. Direct evidence on high school class rank produces similar findings. A school's reputation or prestige has a counterbalancing positive effect on college admission. Institutional gatekeepers are susceptible to context effects, but the influence of school variables is small relative to the characteristics of individual students. The authors tie the findings to prior work on meritocracy in college admission and to the role played by elite education in promoting opportunity or reproducing inequality, and they speculate on the applicability of frog-pond models in areas beyond elite college admission.

    ******************************************

    One must of course weigh how much a child learns in high school and earlier and how happy and challenged he or she is with what affects selective college admissions chances. Even from a mercenary point of view, not graduating from college or being forced to shift to a less demanding major because of poor preparation is a bigger financial loss than attending a less prestigious college.

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