Dr. Blanca Vega Weighs in on Inequity of SAT “Adversity Score”
Posted in: College News and Events
Dr. Blanca Vega, Assistant Professor in the Counseling and Educational Leadership department, recently commented on the issues surrounding the SAT’s “Adversity Score.” The College Board, the non-profit organization responsible for the SAT test as a way to assess college preparedness, recently implemented an algorithm called the Environmental Context Dashboard (ECD), showing background information about the students, including a metric on the presumed level of disadvantage the student experienced when compared to other students.
Dr. Vega commented on the larger issues surrounding this arbitrary score, including the ambiguity of how this score is decided, stating “Who gets to decide whether these students have faced adversity or not?”
Dr. Vega’s scholarship broadly focuses on equity, access, and success in higher education among underserved populations. Her primary area of research situates racism as one of the multiple barriers that affect higher education experiences and successes – not just for students, but also for administrators and faculty. She is currently studying racial incidents in higher education and organizational responses to those incidents.