"The longtime college admissions practice of purchasing student names and information from the College Board — in which Harvard has long participated — has come under scrutiny from experts who say the program commodifies admissions and violates student privacy.
The College Board’s Student Search Program licenses lists of high school students’ names and approximate PSAT or SAT scores, in addition to a limited amount of other demographic information like ethnicity.
Combinations from up to 2.5 million names are distributed to 1,900 accredited colleges and universities, scholarship organizations, and non-profit programs. The dissemination of this information is intended to help students ‘start important conversations with colleges and scholarship organizations and explore their options,’ per College Board spokesperson Zachary Goldberg.
In a typical year, more than 60 percent of the students who end up attending the College were among the names the College purchased from Student Search, according to Harvard spokesperson Rachael Dane. The percentage is even higher — over 80 percent — for minority students at the College." …
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/11/15/college-board-student-names/