US Colleges to Score Students Based on Economic Background

Students aiming to get into American universities will now be given scores based on their social and economic backgrounds. The College Board, an organization that oversees the United States’ standardized college admission exam, will be using a new tool called Environmental Context Dashboard. With this tool, students will be scored on a scale of 1 to 100 based on 15 factors, including neighborhood, family, and high school environment. Scores higher than 50 would indicate that a student is facing great adversity, which may include having low family income or living in a neighborhood with high crime rate. On the other hand, a score below 50 would mean that a student is more privileged. This scoring tool comes amid scandals that some schools are currently facing. Some wealthy and high-profile parents allegedly resort to bribery for colleges to accept their children. The College Board hopes that the new scoring system will level the playing field between wealthy and poor students, as well as diversify the student population in colleges. The tool has already been tested in 50 colleges around the United States, and the College Board plans to also implement its usage in other schools. Yale University, which is among the first schools to try the new scoring scheme, is considering the tool a success. The university’s dean of admissions said that the Environmental Context Dashboard has helped the school diversify its incoming freshmen class. However, some experts questioned the effectiveness of the tool. An analyst criticized the act of assigning numbers to students’ circumstances, arguing that a student’s background and experiences cannot be whittled down into a single score.