SAT Implements ‘Adversity Score’ to Increase Diversity

The Wall Street Journal reported that The College Board, which is the non-profit organization that runs the SAT college entrance exam, is planning on creating “adversity scores” for students. The purpose of this new score criteria is to help collegesincrease diversity on their campuses.

The adversity score will take multiple factors into account, such as a student’s background, crime rate of the student’s neighborhood, their neighborhood’s poverty level. These statistics will be taken from federal data from the U.S. Census Bureau, in addition to personal information-screening questions obtained by The College Board.

The College Board’s attempt to increase diversity reeks of affirmative action, which policy has come under fire at universities such as Harvard.Harvard is facing legal action, as Asian-American parents are suing the Ivy League institution for discriminating against their children in the admission process due to their high test scores and race.

The adversity score appears to be another attempt at improving the chances of minority students entering a higher education institution, a college, or a university. Students, according to the article, will not see their own adversity score. Fifty colleges used adversity scores for admissions in 2018, but The College Board plans on rolling it out to one-hundred-fifty more colleges in 2020 and make it nationwide by 2021.

The College Board admitted that it is an attempt to resolve income inequality in the U.S. College Board CEO David Coleman said, “There are a number of amazing students who may have scored less [on the SAT] but have accomplished more. We can’t sit on our hands and ignore the disparities of wealth reflected in the SAT.”

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