<story><title>SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us/sat-adversity-score.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>remote_phone</author><text>I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while
living in our house.&lt;p&gt;If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible.&lt;p&gt;I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahead. It’s an insult to hard working people across the spectrum.</text></item><item><author>Glyptodon</author><text>This seems likely to end up being ugly. For example wealthy people could buy or rent addresses in &amp;quot;adverse&amp;quot; neighborhoods, or charter schools might locate offices there, in order to attempt to improve scores on this metric. At the same time this won&amp;#x27;t be able to identify many adverse life circumstances like abusive parents, cancer, etc.&lt;p&gt;What it does do is outsource components of admissions decisions the colleges may want to distance themselves from and wrap it up in an opaque package so that they&amp;#x27;re not actually considering anything legally risky in their admissions decisions. This is potentially valuable to institutions that want to have affirmative action style admissions without risking the ire of state legislators.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robotresearcher</author><text>I understand the feeling, but how about if we rephrase it from another viewpoint:&lt;p&gt;I don’t know why I should be punished because my parents didn’t succeed financially. I work hard in highschool but don’t have extra private tutoring or parents who can help me with calculus homework. I’m hard working and bright but how can I compete with kids from Saratoga High School where everyone’s parents went to MIT&amp;#x2F;Penn and work at Apple&amp;#x2F;Google[1]? I read library books and watch Khan Academy, but no one in my family ever went to college. Why does my parents’ achievement have a fundamental  impact on my opportunities?&lt;p&gt;Somehow we have to aim for equality of opportunity. It’s difficult to achieve but can’t we agree on this as a goal? Opportunity should not be inherited. My kids are as good as yours, as the next person’s, independent of how hard we worked.&lt;p&gt;[1] hyperbole. Saratoga parents from UCLA&amp;#x2F;CMU who work  at Netflix&amp;#x2F;NVIDIA I’m talking about you too.</text></comment>
<story><title>SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us/sat-adversity-score.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>remote_phone</author><text>I already talked to my wife about this. I would retire, we would divorce, and I would rent a shitty apartment in East Palo Alto all the while
living in our house.&lt;p&gt;If they think they can boil my kids into a single number without bothering to find the context of who my kids are then I will game it to as much as possible.&lt;p&gt;I don’t know why my family should be punished because my wife and I worked our asses off to get ahead. It’s an insult to hard working people across the spectrum.</text></item><item><author>Glyptodon</author><text>This seems likely to end up being ugly. For example wealthy people could buy or rent addresses in &amp;quot;adverse&amp;quot; neighborhoods, or charter schools might locate offices there, in order to attempt to improve scores on this metric. At the same time this won&amp;#x27;t be able to identify many adverse life circumstances like abusive parents, cancer, etc.&lt;p&gt;What it does do is outsource components of admissions decisions the colleges may want to distance themselves from and wrap it up in an opaque package so that they&amp;#x27;re not actually considering anything legally risky in their admissions decisions. This is potentially valuable to institutions that want to have affirmative action style admissions without risking the ire of state legislators.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sjy</author><text>Choosing to get a fake divorce so that you can game the system as much as possible isn&amp;#x27;t punishment; it&amp;#x27;s probably fraud. You could also choose to relax and let your children enjoy all the other benefits of a great upbringing, and accept that &amp;quot;the children of hardworking parents should be more likely to be admitted&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t a design goal of the admissions system.</text></comment>