A plan to add a so-called adversity score to SAT testing for college admissions has been dropped in favor of a broader look at students’ backgrounds.
The College Board, the nonprofit administering the SAT, said Tuesday it will no longer use a single score based on a student’s high school and home neighborhood — including income, crime rates and unemployment rate — as a way to let colleges consider the student’s economic hardships.
Instead, SAT scores will consider a broader array of factors starting next year, the College Board said, and will make such data public for the first time.
This year was the first time that SAT scores went beyond simple numbers for math and verbal portions, giving colleges an additional way of assessing how a student’s environment may contribute to their academic achievement. The change sparked a broad debate in higher education about how much a student’s economic background should be weighed for admissions.
Admissions officers using the economic-based data said they didn’t have high school information for about one-fourth of applications. The College Board said it is making the change after receiving feedback.
Instituting the adversity score came as colleges have increasingly made it optional for prospective students to submit their SAT scores as part of their applications. In Central Massachusetts, nine colleges have become test-optional in recent years: Clark University in Worcester, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Worcester State University and Assumption College in Worcester, Fitchburg State University, Nichols College in Dudley, Dean College in Franklin, and Anna Maria College in Paxton.
Admissions officials at some of those schools said in June they already consider socioeconomic factors in their admissions process.
