The College Board, which administers the SAT, has announced that it will add an "Adversity Index" to test scores to give admissions officials more context about students' socioeconomic statuses.
The index will provide information about a student's neighborhood, including median family income and how a student's score compares to other scores from their school.
Joining Boston Public Radio to weigh in on this topic was Paul Reville. Reville is the former state secretary of education and a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, where he also runs the Education Redesign Lab.
"The College Board has said something we all know ... that factors outside of school have a great deal to do with your performance in school," Reville said.
Reville believes the score could help level the playing field for students from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to their more privileged peers.
"It's not definitive. It's not decisive in terms of anybody's application," Reville said. "It's one more piece of information an admissions officer might look at in considering the overall profile of the student."
"It gives admissions officers a better, more holistic picture of students," he added.
Critics of the proposal say that the index is a reductive way to represent the hardship a student has faced, and does not adequately address the advantages privileged students have when taking standardized tests.
