[ExI] sat in jail

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Sat Sep 14 18:24:20 UTC 2019


 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
>
Subject: Re: [ExI] sat in jail

 

 

 

>…Adversity points is an abomination.  Now it's the administrators who are cheating, not the students. bill w

 

 

Ja well sure they are.  However, their product is valuable (credentials) and the ability to arbitrarily award that product is a form of power.  Power corrupts.

 

So, all I ask is we get a formula for how many adversity points are awarded for what adversity.  And what evidence is required for adversity claimed.  For instance, if the zip code from an impoverished area is worth sufficient points, a family could arrange to rent an apartment there for a while, gobble up adversity points, get in, go back home.  That is cheaper than buying SAT points.

 

Being told one is American Indian is free.  In my son’s case, his is genetically verifiable.  He’s more American Indian than a prominent senator currently running for president and who used the family folklore to leverage racial minority status.  If they accept DNA evidence rather than family folklore, my son is also African American, in contradiction to the lore (they deny it, but I can prove it.)

 

All I want is the formula.  Failing that, can we bribe someone inside to leak the formula they use to promote their corruption?  If bribing someone inside for the formula is a way of measuring corruption (and, well, taking advantage of it) is that corruption as well?  If so, and I want no part of corruption, are there perfectly legitimate ways to rack up adversity points?  Can we estimate their value?  And what about those sports?  How much is it worth to actually be on one of the kinda fakey sports that doesn’t gobble up much time, such as the ping pong team?

 

Here’s where I am going with it: the SAT is disadvantageous for top students.  We know more and more of the academic elites crowd right up near the top end, so there is little statistical difference between a 1550 and a 1600.  There is a lot of random variation.  So… it is time for the academic elites to get together and create a low-time-intensive team of some sort, the speed walking team for instance, a real team for an emergent sport.  Then they could work together to somehow create a very high crime rate, in such a way that it doesn’t actually destroy any property or cause any danger.  Arrange for a theft team, to each steal each other’s bicycles, file the police reports, then a week later, steal them back around, everybody gets their original bike, two theft reports for each bike, crime rate goes thru the roof, off they go, the poor dears from that crime-ridden neighborhood, to STANFORD, by evolution!

 

BillW, we feel your pain.  Feel ours, professor.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 12:54 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat

Subject: Re: [ExI] sat in jail

 

They were charged too. A decent summary can be found in Wikipedia:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal

 

I don't think there’s anything special about this particular bribery incident. I don’t think it’s any graver a “sin” than other corruption either…Dan

 

 

Dan this one really has my attention.  Since I deal with the local schools as a volunteer for Science Olympiad, Codeo and American Math Competition, I am well aware of the youthful lives of the super-competitive in academic and SAT as a competition sport crowd.

 

Recently it was revealed that there was a mysterious adversity index, which is added to one’s SAT score in some admissions processes.  Since students carefully study their SAT practice tests and note their weak areas, along with estimates of the time commitment to get extra score, they wanted to know exactly what is required to score additional adversity points.  Is race considered for instance?  What evidence is required to establish that?  Is DNA evidence alone sufficient, or must one be told by one’s family the traditional (and usually incorrect) notions on one’s ethnicity?  If one is told by one’s parents of native American ancestry for instance, is that sufficient?  How many adversity points is that worth?

 

This one hits close to home on many levels.  The big prize is admission to Stanford.  It isn’t just because of its prestige, but also because it is a really nice campus, in a safe area, and it is close to home for a lot of people.  Stanford undergrad admission is a huge prize.  If students need to arrange for adversity, this is within the realm of reality.  That’s way easier and safer than cheating on the SAT.

 

spike

 

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