SAT drops student ‘adversity score’

The College Board dropped its plan to add a student “adversity score” as part of its assessment of students who take its SAT tests. 

The “adversity score” was a plan the College Board announced in May that would give colleges a score ranging from 1 to 100 based on a student’s social and economic background.

Instead, the College Board announced Tuesday it is launching a “Landscape” program that will use comprehensive high school and neighborhood information for applicants but won’t output a single score. {mosads}

The Landscape data will be available to both students and schools, whereas the “adversity score” would have been available only to colleges. The College Board said Landscape is meant to help present consistent information about high schools and neighborhoods “so admissions officers can fairly consider each student.” 

The change followed feedback from educators and families over the past few months.

“We listened to thoughtful criticism and made Landscape better and more transparent,” David Coleman, CEO of the College Board, said in a statement. “Landscape provides admissions officers more consistent background information so they can fairly consider every student, no matter where they live and learn.”

The aim of the “adversity score” project was to address disparities of wealth reflected in the SAT. 

Colleges have long considered context about students’ high schools and neighborhoods in admissions decisions, but Landscape will help as schools receive additional applications from more places, the College Board said. 

Landscape does not replace a student’s individual application information, including their GPA, personal essay and high school transcript. It also does not alter a student’s SAT score. 

Landscape will show how a student’s scores compare to those of others at the same high school.