The SAT, administered by College Board every year, is one of the most stressful tests students have to take for college. A new score is being added to this test. This ‘Adversity Score’ is meant to contextualize the scores of students from different backgrounds.

This score is comprised of 15 different factors, including a student’s race and their economic background. The score goes from one to 100, with 100 meaning more disadvantaged. There has been confusion over the score, and it has sparked lots of controversy since its introduction.

The score is not added to a student’s score. It is a separate score from the SAT that is sent to colleges in order to give them a better understanding of why a student may have gotten their score.

The aim is to level the playing field of higher education, as it has been found that higher SAT scores often correlate with those who come from economically privileged families, according to the New York Times.

Brittney Nguyen, a junior at ERHS, dislikes this new score being added because she feels that it will harm more than it will help students. She doesn’t like how vague the score is, stating that she doesn’t “like it because I like to know how the score would affect my SAT.”

While she sees how the score could be helpful to those who are disadvantaged, she she also feels it could penalize people who have worked hard for their SAT scores. She says, “my social standing…should not dismiss the effort that I put into my academics, and I shouldn’t be punished for what I was born into.”