<p>I’m not at all saying that it’s an urban legend that someone may have scores investigated, but I will say that scores being different from the last set of scores is never the sole reason for that.</p>
<p>My score improved by 170. Nothing happened.</p>
<p>S’s score improved by 330 points from first to last SAT taken. What happened? He got cake, bragging rights, and a better score, yee-haw! :)</p>
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<p>This amuses me. Or in SAT essay speak: this slakes my thirst for humor.</p>
<p>tokenadult: for those colleges that require you to send all your scores in, CAN you only send a couple of scores in? will they ever possibly know (does collegeboard say: these are only 2 out of this person’s 5 scores)? or is the requirement to send all scores in purely based on integrity?
can a person lie and send only 1 score in, even though they actually took 4? can colleges truly know?</p>
<p>^I bet there is an indication saying you use score choice or something. Better to not try it.</p>
<p>About 10 or 12 years ago I represented a boy whose ACT score jumped 6 or 7 points–we are talking about like 17 or 18 to 24 or 25. ACT alleged in a letter to him that his paper was too much like the paper of the student next to him and that his increase was suspicious. I wrote a letter explaining that the child had not felt well for the first test and had taken a review course in the interim. In fact, his family was upset that his score had not increased more!! ACT wrote a second letter saying that they were not going to pursue the matter. I don’t remember the first letter exactly but I am pretty sure ACT threatened to cancel the score and report him to the schools where the score had been sent.</p>
<p>For anyone interested in the range and magnitude of score change on retakes of the SAT:</p>
<p>[Score</a> Change When Retaking the SAT I: Reasoning Test](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/cb/score-change-retaking-sat]Score”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board)</p>
<p>The number of kids in that score range who have score increases of the magnitude in the OP is sizeable. No one should hesitate to retake for fear of increasing their score by 75-100 points/section!</p>
<p>cchsm, if you were to be investigated. When would you know?</p>
<p>I don’t know if I believe this story.</p>
<p>ETS does have a statistical model for score increases, but that is if students do not study in between sittings. They project what the range of scores you will get if you retake the test cold. People make huge jumps in test-taking all the time – from 1270 to 1460, in my case, and in many other cases the jumps can be 300 or 400 points with a lot of practice. That’s what test prep companies exist for!</p>
<p>Furthermore, it makes no sense for ETS to chase after one person that they believe may have been cheating for a 150 point difference when they went DOWN the second time. More than two million college-bound students take the SAT every year. ETS doesn’t have time to pursue every student who may have cheated but also may have thrown up, gotten sick, filled bubbles in wrong, broke his pencil and was unable to finish, went to the bathroom, ran out of time, and a whole host of OTHER things that could drop his or her score only 150 points, simply on the basis of the AMOUNT of score change. Not to mention that they have to check everyone else in the room who took it that session? That’s ridiciulous and it doesn’t even make logistical sense.</p>
<p>I don’t believe it. If this kid is getting investigated, there are other factors at play that are being accounted for; it is not simply the numberes game of the increase.</p>
<p>In the vast majority of cases score increases or decreases will not catch ETS’s attention UNLESS they have other reason to believe that you may have cheated on the exam.</p>
<p>Our DS is a college junior, so our actual experience was from when he retook the SAT in 01/2006. If he was able to increase his critical reading/math score by 10 points, the scholarship (his 1st choice school, where he was already accepted) would have gone up dramatically.</p>
<p>He knew there was no way he would get another 10 points in reading, and the writing was not included for the scholarship. With our blessing, his only focus was math. At first he was not doing much in the other parts of the exam, but he got bored, so he did begin to work harder on all parts.</p>
<p>Bottom line, his critical reading score dropped by 280 points. The date the scores were to be posted online, he got a message to check back in a week. A week later, check back in another week. Well I ended up calling, and initially the person on the other end of the phone was not too forth-coming. I said ‘we only care about the math, he had a full ride on the line if he could go up 10 points in math.’ </p>
<p>Well all of a sudden the rep was a bit more perky. She ended up giving me the math score over the phone and explained, remember, this is early 2006, that if there was a 250 point differential in any single part, it raises all sorts of flags. She ended up taking notes and within a couple of days, his scores were up.</p>
<p>This is an absolute true story. Obviously we did not send the new scores, no need!</p>
<p>I had a bunch of info on this at one point but I don’t have access to it at the moment. Maybe when I get home I can find it. Basically, it confirms what East<em>Coast</em>Mom had to say: I remember the part about the 250-pt. difference per section. There was an old Princeton Review article on the subject available online, but it seems to have disappeared. I also seem to remember something about how it usually takes a couple of different red flags to invalidate your score: a huge rise or drop could cause your score to be held up while they investigated, but it would have to be corroborated by something else for your score to actually be thrown out. </p>
<p>It’s worth remembering, however, that these types of red flags are usually cleared up: in the worst case scenarios, there’s a major delay in your score report, and you have to retake the test, sometimes in a specially proctored setting. If you took a Nov. or Dec. test your senior year, you could be in big trouble. It’s also true that if you’re an international student planning on a several hundred point increase on CR, you should wait to take the test until you’re reliably in the 500s if possible. (Maybe a good rule is that if you’re an international student, you shouldn’t take a real test until your junior year, because your English may still be improving so quickly that you could end up with this kind of hassle.) For most people, however, the odds of something like this tripping you up are very slim. So I wouldn’t sweat it unless you’re in the 300s or 400s on some section and are planning to spend a huge amount of time bringing up your score. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>Here’s the article I had in mind: [Disputes</a> with ETS](<a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com/disputes-with-ets.aspx]Disputes”>http://www.princetonreview.com/disputes-with-ets.aspx).
It focuses on SAT policy under ETS, unfortunately, so there’s no way to know for sure that these rules still apply under the College Board. However, based on a few cases I’ve seen since then, it appears that at least many of the guidelines are substantially the same. What’s more, this article specifically mentions the 250-point-per-section increase that East<em>Coast</em>Mom cites, and I believe (?) she got that figure from the College Board, not ETS: more evidence that essentially the same set of policies are still in place.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from that article about score flagging:</p>
<p>"Step #1–FLAGGING: The ETS Test Security Office (TSO) reviews a test-taker’s score, which has been flagged by large score difference or an inquiry of some type (sometimes an anonymous tip). This review most often occurs before the score is reported back to the student and to the other score recipients (i.e. colleges), but sometimes occurs after a score is reported.</p>
<p>"The most common event causing ETS to review a score is that the test-taker has increased his or her score significantly from a score obtained at a prior administration. ETS does computer comparisons of current and prior scores, and “flags” a score for review if the increase is above a certain amount. With SAT scores, if a student increases 350 points or more in combined math + verbal scores, or increases 250 points or more in either math or verbal, the score is flagged for review. This will constitute a questioned score if ETS finds a second item of evidence to support cancellation.</p>
<p>“Also, if an outside person (another student, counselor, admissions officer or coach) contacts ETS and says that cheating may have occurred, even if this is done anonymously, ETS will review the score.”</p>
<p>If you’re curious, the article goes on to talk about what happens next.</p>
<p>And here’s an old thread with some discussion of this very question, as well as the old “what happens if the CB thinks you cheated”: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/422995-i-think-im-going-puke.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/422995-i-think-im-going-puke.html</a>.</p>
<p>I think ETS is once again the contractor to College Board to prepare the SAT tests and to review their test security. You are correct in remembering that for a brief while a few years ago there was a different contractor. College Board owns the brand name, but other companies actually prepare and score the tests.</p>
<p>Thanks for that clarification, Tokenadult: I wasn’t aware of that!</p>
<p>Here’s how it worked out after progressing all the way to the end of the appeals/arbitration process: all of his scores from all his tests were thrown out. His HS was instructed to notify any college to where they may have sent the scores. (The HS said they would but only after a “review” by the HS - which may take many months…effectively making it moot.)</p>
<p>The family contacted his college of choice prior to the decision and asked what effect it might have on his admission and aid package. When they said it would not effect it at all the whole process became academic.</p>
<p>So he’s off to school in the fall as if nothing happened.</p>
<p>But for those who said it can’t happen - it did this time. And it will again.</p>
<p>Wow…yuck. Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>it sounds like the HS in this case was supportive…I’m glad to hear they seem to have had the student’s back.</p>
<p>my scores increased by nearly 500 points and nothing happened… im an international student and took it in germany</p>
<p>This “cautionary tale” involves scores dropping from one SAT to the next, not increasing.</p>
<p>There are lots of holes in this story still. osdad didn’t reveal (perhaps doesn’t know) by how much the student’s scores dropped from first to second testing. As has been pointed out, a 150-point drop by itself is unlikely to have triggered an investigation. </p>
<p>Most colleges which require SAT scores require that those scores be reported to them by the College Board, not the high school. </p>
<p>And yes, of course there are cases where SAT scores are canceled by the CB, because there are cases of students cheating on the test and getting caught. This has nothing to do with a kid taking the SAT twice (or thrice) to aim for a higher score.</p>
<p>As I’ve mentioned, my kid’s SAT score increased over 300 points from his first SAT to his last, and there are many many examples here at CC of kids retaking the SAT and having their scores increase substantially.</p>
<p>There’s more to this tale than osdad has reported, I’m sure.</p>
<p>College Board claims that less than 60 to 80 points difference per section is no indication of a difference in ability. So why would a 150-200 point drop overall warrant investigation?</p>