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My son is a sophomore in high school so this is something I've thought about a lot. We would probably be considered upper middle class, although we live fairly frugally, and he attends a public school that offers tons of AP classes as well as the IB program, which he will start next year. They also offered accelerated classes so that he was able to start high school classes in middle school.
He is a privileged kid. He understands this. I can walk into a bookstore and buy every study guide they have. I hired a tutor for over the summer so he can try to boost his PSAT grade by 10 or 20 points and be a national merit scholar. He doesn't have to work to help the family and I can pay for every extracurricular and school trip he wants to do- he's already been to Europe and Central America.
So while in a way it stinks for him, since he is a really hardworking motivated kid and a great student- if a kid is in a school district without advanced programs, in a family that can't afford tutors and study guides, has to work after school to help support his family, and still aces the SAT? That's pretty impressive, and should count for something.
He will be applying to a bunch of colleges and knows his chance at the Ivy League is slim for a lot of reasons. But he will find a good school that will have the programs he is looking for and will be just fine.
Not every affluent family buys their kids tutors and study guides, and gives them all those things. They are not as focused as you nor your son. What about those kids? We already have Affirmative Action for many college admissions. Why add another layer of Affirmative Action with the SAT and make it meaningless? Can't anything not be infected with Social Engineering BIAS in society.
Yes, there are cultural and economic advantages, and disadvantages in society. It is what helps to MOTIVATE people to improve their circumstances. You are creating a Lawn Mower society where people don't have to overcome adversity which is a disservice to them.
My son is a sophomore in high school so this is something I've thought about a lot. We would probably be considered upper middle class, although we live fairly frugally, and he attends a public school that offers tons of AP classes as well as the IB program, which he will start next year. They also offered accelerated classes so that he was able to start high school classes in middle school.
He is a privileged kid. He understands this. I can walk into a bookstore and buy every study guide they have. I hired a tutor for over the summer so he can try to boost his PSAT grade by 10 or 20 points and be a national merit scholar. He doesn't have to work to help the family and I can pay for every extracurricular and school trip he wants to do- he's already been to Europe and Central America.
So while in a way it stinks for him, since he is a really hardworking motivated kid and a great student- if a kid is in a school district without advanced programs, in a family that can't afford tutors and study guides, has to work after school to help support his family, and still aces the SAT? That's pretty impressive, and should count for something.
He will be applying to a bunch of colleges and knows his chance at the Ivy League is slim for a lot of reasons. But he will find a good school that will have the programs he is looking for and will be just fine.
1) if your public school offers AP classes and others do not, while we have a FEDERAL Department of Education, that is a government problem that once again, everyone wants the private sector to somehow fix. So your son will be penalized for a federal, state and local school board failure...but since you have economic class guilt, that's OK?
2) Anyone can get free study guides out the wazoo by asking Google. Anyone can use the Internet for free at virtually any public library in the country. Even poor people have smart phones (because Obama said so), and smart phones have internet, and virtually all of America is one giant 4G wifi hotspot. Knowledge is not secreted behind a pay wall, despite what your economic class guilt makes you believe. In a society where knowledge is more accessible for more people than at any point in human history, what separates people who know things from people who do not is finding the book and opening it.
3) Chances of going Ivy League are slim for everyone. The average incoming class in the Ivy League is ~2,700 students. Across the 8 schools, that is just shy of 22k people. There are state universities that have freshman classes bigger than that. It is crazy selective. In such a selective world, pure merit makes the most sense, same as the number of people who want to play MLB, NBA, or NFL. Very very selective, but you don't see MLB offering the slow fat kid a spot as starting SS on the Ynakees because the kid grew up in a bad neighborhood? Why should any meritocracy work differently?
4) Acing the SAT/ACT begins in grade/middle school, and it all comes down to two things that are not taught in ANY school anymore - reading and practice. If you read 3-4 books per month starting around 5th grade, and keep that up until you take that test...just that alone will get you in the top 20% of all reading/English scores on those tests. If you can take Alg 2/Trig and Bio/Chem by your sophomore year, you then have two years of knowing everything those tests will ask you and the same amount of time to practice. With a couple friends, some mechanical pencils and a few packs of college ruled paper, you can take like 20 practice tests for about $1 per test. And that's if you go pure retail. The school and public libraries have past practice books typically for the last 5-10 years, and you can take those too. Bottom line, for maybe $100 over two years, roughly $5 per month, you can take close to a hundred practice SAT/ACT tests, with detailed explanations of every answer.
5) You know how many Asian kids start working to contribute to the family before age 10? Lots of them. Asian kids (and I have tutored many) get pushed for not just academics, but extra curricular and real work from middle school forward. They have bigger time demands than most non-Asian kids even comprehend, and mostly because their parents know there is active discrimination against them at elite universities, so hey have to bigger, faster, smarter and more accomplished just to stay even. And somehow, they still get 4.5-5.0 GPAs, perfect SAT/ACT scores, and ridiculous super-citizen extracurricular resumes. And many are lower or straight middle class living in perfectly average neighborhoods. But all that should take a backseat to race and zip code crime rates? Really?
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It's not a question of money, affluence, neighborhood, or race. It's a matter of effort.
In your case, and your son's, you all put forth more effort. That's not something you should feel bad about. Your increase in effort is not the cause of somebody else's lack thereof. Your success did not penalize anyone else. If your son busts his arse, and you bust yours to give him legitimate help, guidance and encouragement...that should be celebrated, not federally punished via active, institutional racial/class
discrimination.
Stop feeling guilty for success. It's a good thing, not a bad thing.
So you get extra points if your father left you and your mother depends on welfare?
You are screwed if you live in a happy family and your hardworking parents care about your education?
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The College Board plans to assign an adversity score to every student who takes the SAT to try to capture their social and economic background, jumping into the debate raging over race and class in college admissions.
So f-ing stupid. Your scores should be the scores. The SAT board should not be doing this. Instead, the student can indicate on their applications if they come from a challenged background.
And even if this helps impoverished students to get into college, it still doesn't help them to pass the courses in college.
Meanwhile, America is suffering a shortage of those in the skilled trades. IMO if a student isn't academically minded, then suggest and give them the options to go to a good trade school and then an apprenticeship into a skilled trade. Certainly, it is useless to push an impoverished student who is academically challenged into going to college and majoring in the arts and humanities, majors that have no career path to jobs that will help them succeed in life as a productive adult.
Your color or your bank account shouldn't matter come test time. Didn't a bunch of rich parents just get busted for gaming the system? So now we are going to reverse game the same system? Two wrongs don't make a right.
So while in a way it stinks for him, since he is a really hardworking motivated kid and a great student- if a kid is in a school district without advanced programs, in a family that can't afford tutors and study guides, has to work after school to help support his family, and still aces the SAT? That's pretty impressive, and should count for something.
well, it certainly and should count for something.
However, there are opportunities in the application process to expound the kinds of adversities they've faced and how they've impacted their learning. This policy (ridiculous ) boils all that down to a number. A score can't possibly convey all of everyone's hardships in great detail, and it shouldn't have to.
potential hurdles would be best described in essays or interviews much better than they could be in conglomerates scores
Plus, and I say this with zero disrespect towards you or your son or your family or anybody else, but let us please do not pretend
you need elite tutors or prep books to get a high score. There are lots of online resources for free, and if you can't access the Internet there's always the library which definitely has some prep books or at least textbooks on the topics. There's also just paying attention in class. Kids are super rowdy and distracting?
It's not like it's "do graduate student-level math and write a thesis on this piece of literature to get a good score," it's "can you do the stuff you were supposed to learn if you paid attention in class and remembered most or all of it?"
Plus, almost everybody faces some kind of challenges. You cannot compare or quantify them. What about a rich kid who suffered from disabilities, mental illnesses, and life threatening illnesses? Do they get additional scores also? Where do you draw the line?
Like I posted earlier, potential hurdles would be best described in essays or interviews
Last edited by lilyflower3191981; 05-17-2019 at 09:53 AM..
well, it certainly and should count for something.
However, there are opportunities in the application process to expound the kinds of adversities they've faced and how they've impacted their learning. This policy (ridiculous ) boils all that down to a number. A score can't possibly convey all of everyone's hardships in great detail, and it shouldn't have to.
potential hurdles would be best described in essays or interviews much better than they could be in conglomerates scores
I agree with this. It's a bad idea.
I understand why some administrators would ask for something like this... but its still a bad idea. It's impossible to boil this down to a number.
My son is a sophomore in high school so this is something I've thought about a lot. We would probably be considered upper middle class, although we live fairly frugally, and he attends a public school that offers tons of AP classes as well as the IB program, which he will start next year. They also offered accelerated classes so that he was able to start high school classes in middle school.
He is a privileged kid. He understands this. I can walk into a bookstore and buy every study guide they have. I hired a tutor for over the summer so he can try to boost his PSAT grade by 10 or 20 points and be a national merit scholar. He doesn't have to work to help the family and I can pay for every extracurricular and school trip he wants to do- he's already been to Europe and Central America.
So while in a way it stinks for him, since he is a really hardworking motivated kid and a great student- if a kid is in a school district without advanced programs, in a family that can't afford tutors and study guides, has to work after school to help support his family, and still aces the SAT? That's pretty impressive, and should count for something.
He will be applying to a bunch of colleges and knows his chance at the Ivy League is slim for a lot of reasons. But he will find a good school that will have the programs he is looking for and will be just fine.
All the resources your son has available and can take advantage of, will help him in the long run. He has what we call "social capital" - the wherewithal or intangibles that will help him adjust to college life. And I'm glad that you recognize this and feel confident that he will do well. Good for you.
This often is lacking or not available for kids who are first generation college students because they don't have any prior knowledge of the culture, or know many other adults who have a university education and what to do...so they get culture shock when they step on campus. And have to deal with how to juggle finances.
Nah, I'm not turning the world into any particular thing. You're just reacting like it's Armaggedon. Get a grip.
How about this?? We get rid of every single Social Justice Initiative (such as this one).
And then YOU and YOURS can simply "get a grip", because getting rid of those things "is nothing to worry about".
Fair??
lol
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