(Forbes)
The College Board has revealed that it will calculate an “adversity score” for every student taking the SAT. According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s an attempt to address evidence that children of wealthy, college-educated parents score higher on the SAT than less privileged students. At least in theory, the adjusted scores will help colleges more objectively evaluate the academic abilities of all applicants. The undergraduate admissions dean at Yale, one of 50 schools that participated in a test run of the new scoring system, told the Journal that it has already helped diversify the freshman class.
The adversity score will be a number ranging from 1 to 100, calculated from 15 factors such as neighborhood crime rates and poverty levels. A score of 50 will be the average; scores above 50 reflect increasing levels of hardship, and scores below indicate higher degrees of privilege. SAT officials indicated that students would not be informed of their adversity scores, but colleges will have access to them as they make admission decisions.
According to the Journal, the development of the new score began in 2015. The plan is to increase the number of participating institutions to 150 this year and then expand use of the index nationally the following year.
The obvious intent of this adversity score is to increase the diversity of students admitted to college and to improve the perceived fairness of admissions at a time when they have come under heavy fire for being subject to bias, privilege and in the case of the college admissions scandal, outright fraud. Whether the adversity score will do the trick and also be able to withstand legal challenges and public scrutiny remains to be seen. Read more
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