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I did pretty well on the standardized tests in high school. If this had existed, i likely would have scored higher than average on adversity. I would be pissed to find out my score was altered in any way due to factors outside my control. If I do well on something, i want it to be from my own merits, whatever my current situation. I don't want to be pandered to because i grew up poor in a shitty neighbourhood.

Everything i learned and can do is because of my own intelligence and skill. Fuck anyone giving me points for things i didn't work for or that are outside my control. I want to be recognized for the things i can do, not because i grew up in a broken, poor family in a low income neighbourhood.

> I would be pissed to find out my score was altered

As was mentioned in the article - it doesn't alter your test score.

You're splitting hairs. Their "score" just becomes whatever function the university uses to decide, and if they use it then their score would indeed be altered by the "adversity" score.

It gives you a separate score.. which is graded along with the first score.. so it effectively alters like OP implied.

> because of my own intelligence and skill... Fuck anyone giving me points for things i didn't work for or that are outside my control...

Your "intelligence" is definitely one of those things completely outside your control. What you've done with it is at least partially under your control, but you probably weren't born with any sort of brain disorder, for example.

EDIT: adding on things like your visual appearance - race, hair color, pigmentation, height, etc - all of those are outside your control, and you generally can't control how other people initially react to those things outside your control.

You didn't control where you were born, or - at least early on - what resources you had access to. You were a victim of (or success due to) your geography, at least early on in your life.

But hey, you 'worked hard' and didn't watch as much tv as some lazy bastards who might get a $1000 scholarship because they grew up in a high-crime area, and fuck that, right?

How? I chose to learn the things i learned outside of school and to an extent the things i chose to learn in both high school and university. I didn't have to learn those things. I could have spent my time watching tv or doing other things. I know the things i know because i spent time and effort learning them.

“Your "intelligence" is definitely one of those things completely outside your control.”

> How?

The capacity for intelligence is outside of your control for example genetic disorders are not chosen by the individual. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome

Further, when it comes to intelligence and Nature vs Nurture it’s really both. People 15,000 years ago people had nearly identical genetics, but their society lacked the knowledge to pass a SAT level math test.

Now, making the best of your social and genetic background is up to everyone. But, assuming everything is balanced is at best willful ignorance.

you didn't choose your capacity for learning. there are people that try - much harder than you'll ever be capable of knowing - who can't do as much as you can. and it's not because of any factors they chose.

Think about an extreme case:

a hypothetical person who was born an autistic savant who is a musical genius. They sold out concert halls at age 9-10, playing the hardest classical music ever written. To what degree did they “earn” their skills and their genius? At a certain point you must agree that people are born with brains that are wired better, and they had no control over that. Effort should be rewarded, but luck should not. Determining how much of someone’s success was luck vs hard work is not at all easy to determine.

Through hard work and discipline, you did the best with the hardware you were given. But don’t think for a second that you wired your own brain.

Edit: and just to clarify, I think some fuzzy new metric on a standardized test will probably never summarize whether someone “earned” their score or lucked into it. My comment here is mostly a reminder to be humble.

When it comes time to enroll in college, I want that savant to go to the best music secondary school that they want to attend. I don't care whether they were "born with it" or "earned it", but I do care that they demonstrate outstanding ability.

Not "outstanding ability, after considering factors X, Y, and Z", but simply "outstanding ability".

And if the savant kid happened to only see a musical instrument for the first time at 10 years old, so that when they took their music entrance exams at 11 years old their performance was very good but not quite at the same level as the other kids who had been learning for 10 years, you would just want to assess all of them on performance at that moment, and choose the kids that had been playing longer because your objective assessment is that they are better musicians.

What if they first touched an instrument at age 25? Well, that person wouldn't get into a top music school at age 18.

It's true that I value demonstrated objective competence rather than subjective predicted future competence.

What is "the best school" here? It must be "the school that will best develop their particular talents", right?

Presumably you want them to go to that school so they can produce the best music possible with their abilities, for the benefit of society. The other option I see is that you might want them to go to that school because they have "earned it", but this is silly, especially considering a case where they haven't done anything, and are just naturally talented!

You now have two problems- first, one school might be excellent at training good musicians but not so great at training savants. Second...

Suppose you have one spot in a magical "savant school", which is able to develop somebody's skills better than anywhere else in the world. You'd want to assign the student who would benefit most to this spot- the one who has greatest potential.

This is NOT the student who currently writes the best music- this is the one who will write the best music after attending the school.

You don't care about ability now- you care about ability later. Predicting the latter from the former alone has an obvious flaw- training and practice improve ability.

Because of this, it's a good idea to consider measures of how much training somebody has had, in addition to their current ability, for admissions decisions.

Unfortunately, quantifying that is hard- so other metrics are used as proxies. In considering admission to an Olympic swimmer training program, for example, perhaps one might consider how early somebody learned to swim, or how often they visited a swimming pool.

No?

The best music school here is the one that they wish to attend. They (and those who advise them) are in a far better position to evaluate the variety of factors that influence that decision than I am, as someone whose only musical instrument ability is a CD player or iPod.

Some music savants want to attend a music school that the composer or musician they most admire attended, others the one that is closest to home.

Iiiinteresting. Seriously.

I don't understand why one would want a talented student to get preferential admission to a school because, for example, he liked the design of the campus. I only get the argument that a talented student should get admitted to a school that'll best develop those talents. The link between "you're talented" and "...so you should get to go to any school you want!" is one I don't get.

Why doesn't that lead to absurdities like a school which specifically excels at teaching "low-talent" students, churning out competent (if unexceptional) composers, still admitting talented students preferentially?

In your autistic savant musician example, they are probably practicing obsessively every second they can manage, and may actually have earned their success. Does their hard work not count because their biology "made them do it?" I guess that's a question that cuts right to the heart of free will and applies to all of us in the end.

what if they aren't practicing every second? what if it simply comes out 100% effortlessly? how do you define "earn"? only X hours of obsessive practice? does their skill not count because they didn't put in years of 'hard work'?

> what if it simply comes out 100% effortlessly? What magical world do you live in? Have you ever acquired any skill in your life?

Did you see the reference to 'autistic savant' up above? That was the example referenced. And even if someone does work/practice some, if the effort is minimal relative to other people ('normal' people, or what not), does it diminish the ability because they didn't "work hard" for it?

personally, I'm no savant, but as a child I really didn't have to work hard at anything in school. I was pushed up a grade, and was still at the top of that class, and bored, for years. i put in basically no effort in to any schooling for years, and was still, generally, way ahead of many other students who, looking back now, were struggling (this was in the day when students could be 'held back' to repeat a grade - I don't think that's done much today?).

i have learned plenty of skills, and some took years, and it's never ending. but some came - essentially - effortlessly (or appeared effortless relative to peers' efforts).

I do understand the initial example; and I have a story similar to yours. But you're comparing apples to oranges here: the experience of having a decent working memory and getting good grades due to schools being unable to test for real knowledge (but regurgitation of facts) and catering to the lowest common denominator, vs the ability to play a musical instrument skillfully are two very, very different problems.

My claim is that the latter is a skill that nobody is born with. Autistic savants aren't some type of magic creature that know things just by virtue of being savants. They still have to go through the process of skill acquisition. Now that process may be accelerated compared to me or you, but I disagree with your claim of proficiency with zero effort, especially with skills that have shown to require thousands of hours of deliberate practice to establish proficiency.

I think the key is in your last statement: "or appeared effortless relative to peers' efforts". It seems you found yourself in an environment which didn't sufficiently challenge you. This would only argue that you should've been pushed up to more challenging AP/honors classes. This would again have the effect of placing you in a higher standing compared to your peers. So if both you and your peers would be pushed to your true potential, it seems consistent with your statements to say your performance/output would've been superior.

So why should colleges deny you entry because of your ability to be proficient in the system they've set up?

If you stop rewarding "luck", where luck means inherent ability, then all the "lucky" people will voluntarily exile themselves into careers that are actually fun and which they can put maximum effort into, and stop working 8 to 6 designing hydroelectric power systems or writing biannual rice production forecasts or gently explaining how to write status update emails to software engineers.

Plus, to what extent is the capacity for hard work based on luck? If long hours give you clinical depression because you got 50 bad genes and experienced neglect as a child and lived in a house with lead paint, do you get sent to live in a slum with the rest of the "lazy" people?

And how would such a test not work out well for you?

You would still score well, and the fact that you have extra work will still hold in good stead.

Let me turn this question that puts your self interest first.

You’ve got two people who you can hire for your team.

I turns out one guy got a lower sat score than the other.

The lower scorer is someone from the projects where people don’t go to college. He still managed it, and crunched his way through everything to get to community college.

The other chap has good parents who are highly educated and comes from a stable household.

Without a doubt, the first individual has proven a tenacity required to overcome a world of adversity.

Frankly - this is a handicap we already give people if we are made aware of their context.

The same reason people respect first responders, or people who’ve made it out of poverty are respected.

Because it IS harder, and far more fail to get out in the current environment, than those who do.

This will end up being more of a “how effective were you with the opportunities you had.” Measure than any other - and that’s provided it takes off in the first place.

Have we forgotten the purpose of universities? Groups of students once gathered in a place to attract groups of professors who can teach them thing, and those professors attracted more students, and eventually they got together and built buildings for teaching and housing for students, formed unions, and all the rest.

Why should we be shoving people who aren't capable of being the very best students into this environment? Why give them the expectation that this is what they must do to be successful? What must everyone learn from a university (including those in the Ivy League and their peers) that we expect them to all need to go, as a fundamental right, regardless of the fact that they will be displacing students who are quantifiably better-fit for this place?

Who will be the first responders if we make everyone get a four-year degree before they can start their lives?

So attractiveness adjustment score is also needed right?

Physical traits have huge correlations and almost certainly causation to wealth and success.

Tax credits for the ugly. Or maybe mandatory minor face disfigurement for the very beautiful.

Hating the rich is hate.

College board should use their zipcode model to provide free tutoring services instead of trying to punish Asian families who made sacrifices to live in better neighborhoods.

Holding down the top doesn't work, isn’t ethical and is not the same as lifting up the bottom.

Love the poor by helping them lift themselves up.

Interesting demonstration of a possible Harrison Bergeron future that leads from here.

Intelligence can be developed. I think it’s called “thinking”. Unless you disagree and have have a more thorough model of the mind as an uncontrollable and spontaneous assembly of synaptic connections in your skull?

My university (one of the top-ranked in the world) did have some sort of adjusted scaling for the final exams. The raw results were never released. One would get a number somehow adjusted for how to the whole cohort did. So that if some exams turn out to be just too damn hart it won't wipe out everybody. But it was opaque and I really hated that!

I did good enough and then went on to do a Masters degree. There I'd get my direct scores. I really feel much better about it. I knew what I did right and what I did wrong.

I think the adjusted score in my undergrad benefited me (some exams were too damn hard!) but I still hated the system.

Was this anything more than just grading to a curve? Because yes, that has its ups and downs, but it's certainly not mysterious in any way.

It's mysterious enough if there's no one willing to explain how the system works. Just that the results are adjusted.

> My university (one of the top-ranked in the world) did have some sort of adjusted scaling for the final exams. The raw results were never released. One would get a number somehow adjusted for how to the whole cohort did

In first year university, I did a semester of Latin. For the first few weeks I was feeling very motivated; then depression hit me. I stopped going to class. What I should have done, is go see a doctor or psychologist, and got a letter saying I was depressed, and given it to the university administration, and I'm sure they would have given me some form of special consideration. But I didn't do that (it simply never occurred to me that I could do that, I wish it had.)

Anyway, since I'd missed more than half the semester of lectures and tutorials, I was thinking to myself - why bother turning up to the exam? I know I am going to fail anyway. But, I said to myself, I should go, you never know, I might somehow scrape through.

So, I sat down at the exam. I think I got the first page right. The subsequent pages, I had no idea. I sat there and waited until they let me leave early. (The university had some rule, you couldn't leave the exam early until after the first half-hour was up, or something like that.)

I waited for my results, I expected to fail. I was very surprised to find out I passed 50.0. I didn't understand how that could happen.

Next semester, I was enrolled in Latin again. I decided to drop it. But I thought, before dropping it, I should just go to the first lecture. As I was leaving at the end, the lecturer pulled me aside. He said to me, "You know you failed the exam, right?". "Yes", I replied. Then he said: "Too many students failed, and the administration told us we had to give some of them passes. We liked you, thought you were really enthusiastic at the beginning, didn't know what happened to you, and are hoping you might continue the subject, so we decided you'd be one of the lucky ones whose fail gets turned into a pass." I thanked him for his kindness, but I still dropped the subject anyway.

It was an interesting insight into just how "flexible" university marking can be.

Wow. That is seriously unfair

Yeah but you had to work harder because of the traits being measured by this score and you should get credit for that, whether or not you think you should.

Sorry, but there are people who work just as hard as you and don't get as far because the deck is even more stacked against them, and this is an attempt at getting them some relief.

If a poor kid in a high crime inner city school who has very limited access to tutors or mentors scores a 1600, that's a much more impressive achievement than an affluent kid in the suburbs who took the test 3 times, had access to experts in the various fields, got 3 good meals every day, etc. getting that same score.

Just imagine what that poor kid could do if given the same resources as the rich kid...

> I know that promoting affirmative action is tantamount to blasphemy on this site, but let's be honest here.

Yes, let's be honest! I was from one of those locations where "adversity" would have benefited me. Worst school district in the state, low income, etc.

I am and I suspect will continue to be upset that the harder I work, the less benefit I receive. I pulled myself out of that situation. People in similar situations don't. I don't think everyone can, but they have an equal opportunity to. All they have to do is study or even just work hard or join the army / navy and do their 20 years.

I understand equal opportunity, but at this point we are forgoing equal opportunity and have been for a long time. By setting limits, calculating scores based on hardship, etc. We are doing the opposite of making it equal opportunity by definition.

> additional context to the scores students receive

Most people lack motivation to get out of their situation and improve, because either they are happy with it or they don't have drive. If they don't have drive, they likely wouldn't succeed anyway and they are taking the spot of someone with said drive. If they are happy - good for them. I’m sure they’d be happy to take a hand out, but they are taking someone else’s spot more deserving.

> I am and I suspect will continue to be upset that the harder I work, the less benefit I receive .

It seems logical and reasonable to give more help to those who need it more. And realistically, you're always going to be way better off by maximizing your own success (even if it means you might get less help) than by minimizing your own success and maximally relying on help. A life lived solely on assistance isn't really a pleasant one.

So I'm curious, do you believe we should switch to a communist economic model as well? Allocate resources based off who "needs it more" seems to be flirting with that ideology. A life lived solely on assistance is better than a life toiled for no gain it would seem.

Should we increase the score for people who are less intelligent and have worse grades on average? They would need it more.

> It seems logical and reasonable to give more help to those who need it more.

It does, but that is because all the counter-arguments are complicated and sound mean-spirited. That approach, when tested, sometimes works out absolutely terribly.

Liberty and assuming everyone has an equal capacity to better themselves is the winning philosophy.

Helping people who need it is a lousy strategy. Giving them opportunities is a great strategy. However, the opportunity needs to be to show that they will work hard for a goal, not shoehorning them in to university. Nobody needs a degree to succeed. They need safe shelter, clear/consistent/unbiased rules, food and a system that allows accumulation of capital. A good universal level of high school education. The basic foundational things that underpin a civilised society.

> And realistically, you're always going to be way better off by maximizing your own success

Most people don't actually work that way, I don't have a statistic but based on anecdote I'd expect most people to minimise risk. People who optimise for success are quite rare.

>If they don't have drive, they likely wouldn't succeed anyway and they are taking the spot of someone with said drive.

I promise you that I know people who, in a short few months, who burn the light out of the brightest soul.

Make them that test subject’s parent and I’ll give you a sure shot to medicority and a life of emotional issues.

Anecdote is never data. On a large enough scale of human data we see that programs that improve basic things like food, interaction with parents and teachers - all improve student outcomes.

Unsurprisingly - these are also things that better off families tend to take care off and spend their resources on.

>So, a separate number being added to College Board's overall package is secret discrimination against Asian students?

It sounds kind of like, "put a gold star on all of the Jewish applicants, and allow each reviewer to decide how to act on that information individually."

It really does not, at all. How can you equate a combination of 15 factors (at least two of which are not tied to any specific identity) to improve admissions results, with a Nazi policy that directly foreran the Holocaust, and singled out groups for mass extermination?

Who said anything about Nazis? Top schools, Harvard in particular, have long tradition of discriminating against Jews.

> Who said anything about Nazis?

"put a gold star on all of the Jewish applicants"

Nazis weren't the first or only people to discriminate against Jewish people.

It's the gold star thing, folks. Gold star + Jewish evokes Judenstern, to use the historic name, not preschool accomplishments. It's definitely true that Harvard and other US colleges/universities discriminated against Jews under the influence of anti-Semitism, and it's also true that there were American Nazis, for instance the German-American Bund in the 1930s.

I don't think that this adversity score has anything to do with the Nazis, I have to say. It sounds like the data is publicly available financial information. So this whole little branch of HN commentary is an unnecessary diversion.

To return to the article, colleges have been giving extra points to legacy admits, children of donors, people from X region, tuba players, violists (but not violinists haha), rowers, lacrosse players, merit students, Lutherans, etc etc etc forever. I think schools should have to option to get the adversity score or not. I went to Caltech; they probably don't care and should stick to their quirky admissions as many of us 'minority' admissions found it comforting in the midst of failure to know that we were admitted on nothing but the material in the application. But other schools serve a different purpose and if they want to admit twelve poor kids by "adversity score" that's great. I have to say I read the coverage and it's just a bunch more rich parents freaking out that they don't have every single last advantage possible. Ask me in 15 years -- maybe I'll be doing the same.

Can you name other groups that made Jewish people wear gold stars?

That is just not true

www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-racial-discrimination-at-harvard/

Regardless of the veracity of that article's data, which I do not care to check - you cannot post an article about Jewish overrepresentation in elite universities and disclaim the fact that the article was written by a Holocaust denier.

There is some correlation between race, culture and outcome. In the bad old days it was thought that race was the causal variable of the 3. Now it is accepted that culture probably plays the causal role.

The classic example is Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. The Jews had a racial stereotype of being moneylenders; that stereotype didn't evolve because of a racial disparity, it evolved because Christians generally didn't charge interest. So the moneylenders were non-Christian and that correlated with being a different race.

There is evidence of a slight bias where Asian migrants sacrifice more to set up their children's educational future. Policies that cheapen the impact of sacrifice will disproportionately affect them. It may not be explicitly racist, but the outcomes will likely be delectably different in different racial groups, to the net loss of the Asians.

The stereotype evolved because Jews were forbidden by law from owning land in most of Europe and also forbidden from joining the guilds that ruled the professions. So if you can't own land and can't be a professional and also might be forced out of your home in a hurry, the game-theoretic solution is to be a moneylender. I don't think this is particularly cultural, as women in India for instance have long kept their wealth in gold for the same reason. That's why women like jewelry: if you're forbidden from having a bank account and credit and can't own your home, you need to have something you can carry away and pawn. (I mean, since the 1960s women have been allowed to open their own bank accounts in the US -- but that's within my mother's lifetime!)

> I also don't understand how a single organization making a change to its testing package, in the interest of leveling the playing field, is somehow "pushing" your political beliefs in any one direction... It's your choice whether you want to align your beliefs more closely with any side.

Leveling the outcome is NOT leveling the playing field. And by keeping the algorithm secret, it is tyranny not justice.

No. I’m an MIT SB and Berkeley PhD and I will tell you engineers never made a living in the US until around 2000 (fiberoptics and Netscape boom). The “right” will snatch that right back.

Let the gamification begin where subpar students move into crime filled areas at least on paper and into rough schools. While paying for private SAT tutors.

> So, a separate number being added to College Board's overall package is secret discrimination against Asian students? The "adversity score," according to the article, is calculated based on 15 different factors. The two listed (relative quality of the student’s high school and the crime rate/poverty level of the student’s home neighborhood) are not directly tied to any one race.

The powers that be do not get the benefit of the of doubt after all the shenanigans they've pulled over the past century.

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There's no evidence for this -- from what the parent poster said, he probably lived in a well-off neighborhood and went to a well-off school. The article specifically says race is not a variable, so you seem to have a factual inaccuracy in your statement. Since poverty level within zip code is one of the few variables specified, and the parent poster would show less rather than more adversity in this respect, how do you justify your argument?

Cool assumptions.