The adversity index is a list of factors about a student’s life and background designed to take into account their socio-economic background when looking at their SAT scores. The College Board designed it with the goal of creating a more holistic profile of students.

The index includes a “disadvantage number” scored between 1 and 100. Students will not be able to view this score and will, therefore, be unable to know if it had an impact on their admissions decisions. The index was first piloted by 10 colleges in 2017 and in 2018, 50 schools ranging from Ivy League to public tested out the system.

The creation of the adversity index is understandable, but so is the skepticism and controversy surrounding it. There are still several questions that are left unanswered for people in academia and students alike:

Where is the College Board getting their data from to measure this adversity index? how exactly are they interpreting this data? Should more criteria be considered in the index? And most importantly, can the adversity index be part of the solution to the complex problem that is social inequality in the U.S.?

Key Timestamps
02:02 The history behind the SAT
02:47 The Army Alpha Test, explained
05:07 Content of the original SAT test
06:05 Correlation between socio-economic status and SAT scores
06:33 The Adversity Index, explained

Music:
Grip hop, Dark hallway distressed, Divertimento, Impending Boom and Digya by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Sources:

The history behind the SAT
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/history.html
https://www.petersons.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-the-sat-and-how-it-changes/
http://www.nea.org/home/73288.htm
https://www.studypoint.com/ed/sat-history/

The Adversity Index
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sat-to-give-students-adversity-score-to-capture-social-and-economic-background-11557999000
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/05/college-board-sat-adversity-score/589681/
https://theconversation.com/the-sats-new-adversity-score-is-a-poor-fix-for-a-problematic-test-117363
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/college-board-sat-test-adversity-index/
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-i-would-have-fared-on-the-sats-adversity-score

The SAT Adversity Index, Explained | The history behind the SAT
Written by Elisenne Stoller
Produced by Sofia K.
Edited by Amanda Lee