Genius Blog Post: News, SAT/ACT, Scoring
July 11, 2019
SAT:
Can you really put a number on ADVERSITY?
That’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves since the newly introduced Adversity Score system.You may have heard the College Board made some recent changes in scoring the SAT/ACT. A 15-factorvoluntary questionnaire—to assess social, financial and environmental elements in a student’slife—is now presented to students and, in theory, it is to help them score better on the SAT/ACT.
Is it fair?
You won’t see your score—only the colleges will. You will be ranked 1-100 where scores from 50and up will indicate increasing experience of adversity.Over the years there has been a swing towards the ACT as the chosen testing program for many students. It seems the College Board may have been searching for a point of difference to clawback some SAT market share. The intention to measure is great, but at College Prep Genius we’ve decided to wait until the dust settles. There seems to be quite some contention from all sides.
The good, the bad and the…disturbing
That’s right, there’s definitely great merit in trying to factor in social and economic differences that may have played a part in compromising the chances of students and their college placement.
The whole premise of the SAT/ACT and other testing systems is to be as objective as humanly possible. To us, measuring such moveable variables is just about as far away from objective as you can guess. And we think that’s a cause for concern.
Basically, the new system tries to quantify the (subjective) social and economic effects of your neighborhood and schooling, and then factor all that into the all-important (objective) SAT/ACT score. These elements appear to be at loggerheads.
Merit has always been at the core of all college prep-testing. You do well, you get rewarded. It’s been a system that works. Around that system is another system—of scholarships, awards and grants. These seem to be one good way to manage the adversity of many different types of students, whether because of race, hardship, income, mental or physical health, sex, minority status,age, gender and good old merit. It seems the testing of adversity seems to try to “kill two birds with one stone” or even—to use another metaphor—mix oil and water. We’re not sure it works but we’re willing to see how it all evolves.
As in most new social systems (especially those with far-reaching implications), all relevant consequences can never really be taken into account and there will always need to be tweaking.
Academic skills are only part of a student’s success. Are your abilities in this area always the slave of things like your family income, or the economic status of your neighborhood? Can you really create an index out of 100 to express hardship? Could it apply to any student in any circumstance? Does such an index unintentionally compromise great students who have little or no adversity to speak of, but just happen to live in “normal” circumstances? What would happen to your score if you’re a student of lower means living in a wealthy zip code (or vice versa)? You would want to stand out on the merits of your work, regardless.
You are probably asking yourself what is disturbing about this whole Adversity Score deal? One major thing is the black box phenomenon. With college placement, you want transparency. You need to know where you stand, how you were scored and make it as black and white as possible.Right now, the College Board has the scoring parameters under wraps. That doesn’t seem fair and it means there is little room for recourse if you don’t get the outcome, you’re after.
Something I am sure should disturb any reasonable person is that much of the determination of the score is provided by the students themselves. Questions are asked of the student and they are simply asked to respond. The very concept of an adversity questionnaire means the instrument can never be objective and will provide skewed results. There are multiple problems and here are the two biggest ones. Both substantially upend the validity of the questionnaire and call into question its usefulness.
- 1Response bias. People who fill out questionnaires will often unwittingly provide inaccurate or false answers. Sometimes they answer what they would like to respond—they present their ideal selves. If you’re being asked questions about adversity,your mind will be skewed towards enhancing those types of answers.
- 2Willful manipulation of the truth (A.K.A. lying). The whole system is practically inviting people to game it to manipulate their scores.
The result? It turns out the SAT/ACT may now no longer be the great equalizer that it has always been.
Hopefully the issues will be resolved. Either the new facet to SAT/ACT scoring will be removed or fixed. Something has to happen. This new idea is supposed to take effect in 2021 if it can survive the controversy and lawsuits.
In the meantime, remember the most important things: You still have plenty of choices. You can take the ACT and the CLT for college entrance and scholarships. And you can still apply the principles of College Prep Genius in your college preparation for success on these tests—including the SAT. Try any of the college prep exams to see how you score.
Feel reassured that your scores can be recalculated to match the ACT or CLT scoring systems. It is up to you to take the Adversity Test. Maybe the College Board will realize that families will participate in a system they have more faith in.
Zip codes, race, ability, adversity…none of these things are unique to a certain type of student.There are people of low financial means that live in wealthy suburbs. A likelihood of a certain‘race’ to live predominantly in a particular area doesn’t mean it applies to all. Excellent students can be found in ANY school. Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes and despite the type experienced, it is the ability to overcome it, or side-step, cope or succumb that is peculiar to each case.None of this can be quantified accurately. It can only be guessed via statistics. Inherent in the whole notion of statistics, is that it measures difference and likelihood—not certainty.
Sweep the grey areas aside and you’d be left with the comparison of critical thinking—the traditional level-playing field of the SAT and other important testing and scholarship instruments.The Adversity Score threatens the objectivity of that field. Is a person from a stable single-parent household more worthy than someone from a stable traditional family unit? How does that change if the person from a two-parent family has suffered from some adversity? Surely adversity is a subjective measure that goes through many filters where bias and opinion will make this system so much more cumbersome.
Can you really crystallize a very changeable set of factors with a wide variety of possible outcomes that multiply out to infinite results, and then pack it down to a neat and reliable formula? We certainly don’t think so. And we’re not alone. Life is experienced and measured a lot more now in this digital age. It can seem really dehumanizing to distill experience down to a mere data point—a number on a scale.
The Good News
Fortunately, the College Prep Genius program doesn’t just work on the SAT. It also works on the ACT and CLT. Maybe this whole saga is a classic “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” case. It’s comforting to know that despite all the hubbub, you can rely on CPG to help you support your best chances to study where you want, and secure some free college money. It’s worked for tens of thousands up until now. Will you be next?
Jean Burk
Founder,
College Prep Genius
Jean Burk is the author of College Prep Genius and is a Fox news contributor who has been featured on many TV networks, radio shows and magazines. Both her children were homeschooled and earned incredible scholarships including free college, free grad school and free law school because of their standardized test scores.
