It's fine to recognize it. But if you say, z-score applicants by their 'adversity score' peer group, then you negate the impact of their parents efforts. If you negate their parents efforts, you make it not worthwhile for their parents to make those efforts in the first place. If you make it not worthwhile to make those efforts, they won't be made. And society as a whole will be worse off for it.

Because the College Board isn't doing it in a way that truly reflects the adversity each kid faced.

For example, if Alice is raised by two loving parents in a so-so neighborhood she gets a score of 50. If Bob was abused as a child, put into foster care at 10, and adopted into a good neighborhood at 14 he gets a score of 25. Due to Bob's past he is way behind in school but works hard. Bob and Alice both end up getting 1400. At a selective school its possible that because Bob his a lower adversity score his application automatically gets rejected while Alice's application gets looked at and accepted.

This is the kind of case that is possible with an "Adversity Score" that bothers me.

The crime rate in a neighborhood is actually something kids can control (i.e. they can commit crimes to boost their scores).