He said the tool “helped us identify kids who have overcome significant contextual adversity in a very race-neutral way and a very data-driven way.” Race is not a component of the adversity score, which Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, told the Yale Daily News last September is something he found to be helpful. Trinity’s vice president for enrollment management, Eric Maloof, told the school’s newspaper the tool helped in addressing a growing volume of applicants. Trinity University in Texas is one such pilot school that has been incorporating the dashboard into its admissions process. Coleman also reported that some admissions officers said it helped to rely less on stereotypes and assumptions while welcoming a more diverse class of students. “There is talent and potential waiting to be discovered in every community.”Īfter piloting the program this year, the College Board said its impact was clear: Disadvantaged students were “more likely to be admitted” through the use of the new system.
“ enables colleges to witness the strength of students in a huge swath of America who would otherwise be overlooked,” College Board CEO David Coleman said in a statement. It plans to expand the use of the score to 150 schools this fall, and then is expected to be used even more broadly the following year, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
Students themselves will not be able to view their own adversity scores, so they will not know how much the score influenced their college admissions decisions.įifty schools, ranging from the Ivy League to public universities, tested out the program in its admissions process last year, according to The College Board, a non-profit that oversees the SAT exam. Together, they add up to an overall disadvantage level, scored out of 100, that only universities will be able to view in a special tool that supplements the exam.