[harryh]

There are great high schools, decent high schools, mediocre high schools and bad high schools and we can tell the difference.

There are neighborhoods full of rich people, middle class professionals, working class people, and slums and we can tell the difference.

I don't know why you think that's so hard. It seems quite easy to me. Certainly worth trying instead of (as you seem to advocate) just giving up at the slightest difficulty.

[max76]

This isn't a slightly difficult problem, this is a fundamentally impossible problem. A qualitative thing cannot be quantified.

If we could quantify adversity we could calculate the percentage out of all human suffering that occurred during the Trail of Tears or determine the single most resilient living person.

I'm not saying we should consider adversity in college admissions. I'm saying we shouldn't quantify human emotions and experiences.