5 ms·

This is just cover for racial discrimination. Applicants should be able to see the "adversity scores" that determine where they get in, just as you are now able

This is just cover for racial discrimination. Applicants should be able to see the "adversity scores" that determine where they get in, just as you are now able to see the credit scores that determine whether you get a mortgage. According to the article, only colleges see the adversity scores.

mises 8y ago
Unfortunately, yes. The College Board is doing this so that colleges can get around a possible future SCOTUS ruling against racist admissions. Apparently, they have also been calculating these and giving them away behind the backs of students and without their consent. More than a little creepy, and certainly wrong. I hope they get sued into the ground for this.
- pmart123 8y ago
  Yes. This seems like a way to remove the liability away fro m the university, and therefore, the university doesn't have to give predominantly Asian applicants a poor "personality rating" to affect their application. This new way could be more fair though, for instance, it could rate an Asian applicant growing up in a tougher area higher than one that went to Phillips Exeter. Potentially, there could be ways to game this too, such as parent's of private school students renting an apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, and using that address as the application address. Overall, it seems at least as an improvement over the dart on a dartboard approach colleges have taken to measure adversity or hardship.
  - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
    yea but then they would also need to go to a shitty high school according to this article, seems like a lot effort to look poor.
HansLandaa 8y ago
How is it just racial discrimination if it uses quantitative data about income levels, crime rates and high school AP class availability?
- opwieurposiu 8y ago
  Because those things are being used a proxy for race.
  - HansLandaa 8y ago
    Well, there is probably a positive correlation with race because in America wealth and income are highly correlated with race. It is not a perfect correlation though and I'm sure there are many people from rural areas that would benefit from the adversity metrics. I'm not sure if any attempt to address adversity should simply be dismissed because of the correlation with race.
    - vanilla_nut 8y ago
      In fact this sounds like the right way to adjust test score expectations -- if someone came from a place with little opportunity, but still scores reasonably well, that means a lot more than someone who had a lot of opportunity and only made use of some of it. The applications would look very similar to a college admittance board, so I think this is a positive change. Using race as a proxy for opportunity levels growing up is entirely the wrong way to approach the problem because 1) you can have people in "disadvantaged" races who had lots of opportunity who get an unfair, unneeded boost and 2) (more important imo) you don't disadvantage folks from an "advantaged" race who actually faced a lot of adversity growing up. A white kid who grows up in a trailer park going to a public school should be given a helping hand over a kid from [insert other race here] who grew up attending a $50k/year private school. Of course, any system has its problems. I'm sure that people will find a way to game this system when they don't deserve the advantage even though it sounds like a reasonably implemented idea. Just hiding the scores doesn't fix this, because someone corrupt enough to try to game this won't care if they're doing something immoral anyway. As someone who would have benefited a lot from this growing up, I think it's a great idea. We just have to hope the inherent good ideas here outweigh the immoral system-gamers.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        > A white kid who grows up in a trailer park going to a public school should be given a helping hand over a kid from [insert other race here] who grew up attending a $50k/year private school. Or maybe it isn't a helping hand. Maybe it's just a recognition that the kid, in getting to the level he/she is at through all that adversity, may be displaying more talent than the advantaged kid. You can think of it as social justice, giving a helping hand to those who need it. Or you can think of it as trying to adjust measures of achievement in order to measure actual talent instead.
synlatexc 8y ago
I can see the value in this. It is one of many factors, not the factor. The score will give admissions officers an objective, standardized view of applicants' environmental circumstances. A 3.9 GPA and 1490 SAT score is one thing if the applicant is from Lake Forest or Greenwich, and quite another if they are from the South Side of Chicago or rural WV.
- astazangasta 8y ago
  >objective Did you mean quantitative? People have got to get over the idea that just because someone came up with a metric it somehow elides subjectivity and bias. A metric is a model; a model makes choices about representation.
  - synlatexc 8y ago
    Yes, I do. Fair point.
strikelaserclaw 8y ago
I'm sure poor whites/asians could also be advantaged by this, not sure how this is a cover for racial discrimination. I think it could be a powerful tool in providing relevant context to admissions officials.

mises 8y ago

Unfortunately, yes. The College Board is doing this so that colleges can get around a possible future SCOTUS ruling against racist admissions. Apparently, they have also been calculating these and giving them away behind the backs of students and without their consent. More than a little creepy, and certainly wrong. I hope they get sued into the ground for this.

pmart123 8y ago
Yes. This seems like a way to remove the liability away fro m the university, and therefore, the university doesn't have to give predominantly Asian applicants a poor "personality rating" to affect their application. This new way could be more fair though, for instance, it could rate an Asian applicant growing up in a tougher area higher than one that went to Phillips Exeter. Potentially, there could be ways to game this too, such as parent's of private school students renting an apartment in a dangerous neighborhood, and using that address as the application address. Overall, it seems at least as an improvement over the dart on a dartboard approach colleges have taken to measure adversity or hardship.
- strikelaserclaw 8y ago
  yea but then they would also need to go to a shitty high school according to this article, seems like a lot effort to look poor.

HansLandaa 8y ago

How is it just racial discrimination if it uses quantitative data about income levels, crime rates and high school AP class availability?

opwieurposiu 8y ago
Because those things are being used a proxy for race.
- HansLandaa 8y ago
  Well, there is probably a positive correlation with race because in America wealth and income are highly correlated with race. It is not a perfect correlation though and I'm sure there are many people from rural areas that would benefit from the adversity metrics. I'm not sure if any attempt to address adversity should simply be dismissed because of the correlation with race.
  - vanilla_nut 8y ago
    In fact this sounds like the right way to adjust test score expectations -- if someone came from a place with little opportunity, but still scores reasonably well, that means a lot more than someone who had a lot of opportunity and only made use of some of it. The applications would look very similar to a college admittance board, so I think this is a positive change. Using race as a proxy for opportunity levels growing up is entirely the wrong way to approach the problem because 1) you can have people in "disadvantaged" races who had lots of opportunity who get an unfair, unneeded boost and 2) (more important imo) you don't disadvantage folks from an "advantaged" race who actually faced a lot of adversity growing up. A white kid who grows up in a trailer park going to a public school should be given a helping hand over a kid from [insert other race here] who grew up attending a $50k/year private school. Of course, any system has its problems. I'm sure that people will find a way to game this system when they don't deserve the advantage even though it sounds like a reasonably implemented idea. Just hiding the scores doesn't fix this, because someone corrupt enough to try to game this won't care if they're doing something immoral anyway. As someone who would have benefited a lot from this growing up, I think it's a great idea. We just have to hope the inherent good ideas here outweigh the immoral system-gamers.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      > A white kid who grows up in a trailer park going to a public school should be given a helping hand over a kid from [insert other race here] who grew up attending a $50k/year private school. Or maybe it isn't a helping hand. Maybe it's just a recognition that the kid, in getting to the level he/she is at through all that adversity, may be displaying more talent than the advantaged kid. You can think of it as social justice, giving a helping hand to those who need it. Or you can think of it as trying to adjust measures of achievement in order to measure actual talent instead.

synlatexc 8y ago

I can see the value in this. It is one of many factors, not the factor. The score will give admissions officers an objective, standardized view of applicants' environmental circumstances. A 3.9 GPA and 1490 SAT score is one thing if the applicant is from Lake Forest or Greenwich, and quite another if they are from the South Side of Chicago or rural WV.

astazangasta 8y ago
>objective Did you mean quantitative? People have got to get over the idea that just because someone came up with a metric it somehow elides subjectivity and bias. A metric is a model; a model makes choices about representation.
- synlatexc 8y ago
  Yes, I do. Fair point.

strikelaserclaw 8y ago

I'm sure poor whites/asians could also be advantaged by this, not sure how this is a cover for racial discrimination. I think it could be a powerful tool in providing relevant context to admissions officials.