From any remotely objective view-point, a policy that chooses to add a hidden adversity score based on poverty, single-parenting and perceived hardship to a test that is designed as a measure of your scholastic ability is most certainly denigrating to folks who have chosen to lift themselves out of that adversity through experience of great adversity!

A policy that gives 5K to low-income families to allow their children to compete effectively on the SAT is not denigrating.

I firmly believe that if you pose this question to the world, a near complete majority of people will rule the latter is fair, the former is not. There is no arbitrary pick of an observation point here. These are two completely different policies.

And the first sentence is strange. If equal opportunity versus equal outcome is a merely a matter of perspective, then you can draw your lines even further! After all, whatever effects poverty and weaker education had on students in their ability to perform on the SAT certainly won’t have disappeared once they stroll across the campus green!

You can contribute the hidden adversity scores to course grades, contribute it to graduate honors, contribute it further to employment opportunity and promotion. You can draw your line at retirement and benefits if equal opportunity vs equal outcome is merely a matter of perspective.