Adversity Score?

16 May 2019, 06:12 PM

QuirtEvans

Adversity Score?

It would be as interesting to see who had input. I’m sure different colleges would prefer different weightings.

16 May 2019, 06:15 PM

jon-nyc

Except the schools could easily do this themselves, and kind of already do, even if informally. (IOW they weigh a number of these factors today)

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

16 May 2019, 06:25 PM

jon-nyc

I wonder how long they’ll be able to keep people’s score hidden from them.

This can be at least as consequential as a credit score, at certain times in your life. There will probably be some pressure for transparency.

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

16 May 2019, 11:04 PM

QuirtEvans

Here are some interesting stats from Axios:

quote:
73% of people, including most Hispanics, black people and Asians, say colleges and universities should not consider race or ethnicity when making decisions about student admissions, the Pew Research Center reported in March.

47% say standardized tests should be play a major role in admissions, while an additional 41% say it should play a minor one.

17 May 2019, 05:20 AM

jon-nyc

There’s some interesting polling on that. Even among its purported beneficiaries, majorities think we shouldn’t ‘consider race as a criteria’ for admission. Yet among those same groups, rewording the question to call it ‘affirmative action’ garners support of majorities. It shows you the power of euphemism.

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

17 May 2019, 08:41 AM

Jack Frost

quote:
Originally posted by jon-nyc:
I wonder how long they’ll be able to keep people’s score hidden from them.

This can be at least as consequential as a credit score, at certain times in your life. There will probably be some pressure for transparency.

This is the part I really don't like.

jf

17 May 2019, 10:20 AM

QuirtEvans

Do me a favor and distinguish something for me.

Colleges already do something like an adversity score for each student, as part of the admissions process. It's probably in each student's admissions file. It may not be a score, it may be more subjective than that, but they certainly take those factors into account, and there's probably something ... either a score, or a statement about the factors ... in each file. Applicants don't get to see that.

Why, when they outsource the analysis and distillation of those factors to a third party, is it more objectionable?

17 May 2019, 10:32 AM

jon-nyc

It's a good question, but I think it has a good answer. It's the relative inescapability of it. THere's a certain tyranny of a single judgment following you everywhere that isn't present when multiple organizations (or people) make their own judgements about you.

Every potential lender will size me up. Sure. Far more concerning is a single score made by a faceless agency that follows me everywhere. (FICO)

As a more insidious example, every person and organization that interacts me with sizes me up to a degree or another, far better that than having a single 'social credit' score follow you around as in China.

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

17 May 2019, 10:39 AM

jon-nyc

Also, I think many of us are uncomfortable with the way individual universities do this same process. Especially the non-transparency of it.

This is just worse, because - to put it bluntly - the nameless, faceless authors of the secret formula have even more power.

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

17 May 2019, 10:52 AM

jon-nyc

Take this to - not an extreme, but a plausible destination - say half of the nations 4 year schools end up using this score.

As I mentioned before, you could have a pretty significant impact on ethnic balance by tweaking this formula.

Want more hispanics, fewer whites and blacks? Goose the ESL weighting. Maybe you want more blacks, and fewer asians? Goose the single parent weighting. Want more whites and fewer blacks? Crank down the weighting of neighborhood crime rates.

What mix did College Board solve for when designing the formula? THat's a lot of social engineering power to put in the hands of a single company. Who even got to make the decision? What do we know about those people?

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

17 May 2019, 09:54 PM

jon-nyc

On twitter it’s being called the “Social Detriment” score, a reference to China’s “Social Credit” score.

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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.

24 May 2019, 10:47 PM

Jack Frost

Perhaps it’s time all schools made SAT optional.

Jf

24 May 2019, 11:19 PM

QuirtEvans

quote:
Originally posted by Jack Frost:
Perhaps it’s time all schools made SAT optional.

Jf

That doesn’t solve the problem. It just removes the SAT from the equation.