College Board quietly eliminates tool designed to find low-income, high-achieving students

 The College Board, which administers the SAT exam, is ending the “Landscape” program that allowed admissions officers to view data on a student’s neighborhood and high school.

When the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, universities scrambled to find new ways to build diverse student bodies without directly considering race.

One option many turned to was “Landscape,” a tool developed by the College Board, the same nonprofit that runs the SAT. The dashboard allowed admissions officers to view data on a student’s neighborhood and high school, such as median family income, crime rates, and the percentage of single-parent households. It never included racial demographics.

Last week, the College Board announced it was discontinuing “Landscape,” with little explanation, as reported by The New York Times. The move comes as the Trump administration intensifies its campaign against diversity and equity efforts, recently warning colleges not to use “hidden racial proxies” in admissions.

The timing has raised alarms. “Landscape” had already drawn the attention of “Students for Fair Admissions,” the anti-affirmative action group whose lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina paved the way for the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Richard D. Kahlenberg, director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and an expert witness for “Students for Fair Admissions,” called the College Board’s decision “unfortunate” in an interview with the outlet. He emphasized that “Landscape” was “race-neutral and its use is perfectly legal,” noting that the Court itself suggested socioeconomic factors were a valid way to pursue diversity.

A controversial history

Initially introduced in 2019 as an “adversity score,” the tool ranked students on a 1–100 scale based on neighborhood and school challenges. Pushback from affluent parents, who worried it would devalue their children’s SAT scores, forced the College Board to abandon the single number and rebrand the project as “Landscape.”

Still, critics said it unfairly favored wealthier students living in gentrifying neighborhoods while overlooking the real barriers low-income students face at home.

A 2022 study found that “Landscape” modestly increased admissions offers for students from disadvantaged schools but had little effect on enrollment, unless colleges used it to adjust financial aid.

“The hope was to affect enrollment decisions on the margins, not dramatically reshuffle which students were going to enroll,” said Zack Mabel, co-author of the study and now director of research at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. He added that the College Board’s move was not surprising, describing it as “a politically savvy move to avoid risk.”

What’s next for diversity in admissions?

Though the data powering “Landscape” was publicly available, the tool streamlined the process for admissions offices. Without it, universities must decide whether to invest in their own systems to contextualize applicants’ backgrounds or retreat under political pressure. For Black students and those from low-income families, the stakes are high. The cancellation of “Landscape” underscores the chilling effect of legal and political threats on equity efforts, raising fresh questions about how far colleges are willing (or able) to go to build classes that reflect the country’s diversity.