SAT secretly injects race into exam with 'adversity score'

In an apparent attempt to skirt a possible Supreme Court ruling against race-based admissions, the College Board will assign a secret "adversity score" to students who take the SAT.

Students won't know what the score is, and the College Board won't say how the score is determined, the Wall Street Journal reported, according to the Daily Caller.

The 1-100 score, called the "Overall Disadvantage Level," will be available to colleges evaluating student applications. Any score over 50 designates a student as disadvantaged.

"The purpose is to get to race without using race," Anthony Carnevale, former employee of the College Board and director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, told the Wall Street Journal.

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The Supreme Court could take on a lawsuit filed on behalf Asian American students against Harvard University claiming admissions officers discriminate against them based on race. The students say they are penalized as a group for high test scores in an effort to create a more diverse student body.

The College Board will weigh 15 factors, which include poverty levels based on a student's address and the crime rate in his or her neighborhood.

The score will rely also on public records and other sources available to the College Board, an official told the Wall Street Journal.

The other leading college-admissions test, the ACT, plans to announce a similar score later this year.