Parents Will Try to Cheat the New SAT Adversity Score System

While the College Board has tried to level the field for college applicants by creating a new Adversity Score on the SATs, leave it up to parents to try to game the system. This Adversity Score gives points to students who don’t have the same privileges as wealthy students by evaluating where they live, family income, neighborhood crime, and other factors.  The College Board will neither release the algorithm nor the actual Adversity Scores. Naturally, there’s been a huge outcry from wealthy parents who want to know the algorithm used to determine these adversity points.

So how will parents try to game the system? They’ll use home addresses of friends who live in poor neighborhoods and report lower family incomes.  After the infamous college admissions scandal was exposed a few months ago, we now know that wealthy parents will pay their way to get their children into top colleges.  As for the Adversity Score, some parents will undoubtedly try to manipulate their way to giving their children a leg up on their peers.

[Source]