STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The college entrance exam, the SAT, will add a new “adversity score” to test results that would account for factors like educational or socio-economic disadvantages, according to a report from the New York Times.
The College Board made the announcement on Thursday, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, that it would allow college admissions offices to take these disadvantages into consideration when it comes to admitting students.
The New York Times reported that higher scores have been found to correlate with students coming from higher-income families and having better-educated parents.
David Coleman, chief executive of the College Board, described a trial version that has been field-tested by 50 colleges, according to the New York Times. Coleman announced it will roll out the plan officially to 150 schools this year and more broadly in 2020, according to the report.
The New York Times reported that this adversity score would be a number between 1 and 100, with an average student receiving a 50. It would be calculated using 15 factors, such as the relative quality of the student’s high school, and the crime rate and poverty level of the student’s home neighborhood, the report said.
This score wouldn’t be reported to the student, but only to college officials, according to the New York Times.
The report said that admissions officers have struggled to find ways to gauge the hardships student have had to overcome, and predict which students will do well in college despite lower SAT test scores.
However, the New York Times reported the plan could face backlash from those affluent families and students who do well on the SAT and worry the adversity score would put them at a disadvantage.