Understood.
That post was really an effort to make a point by example. The people I named–the same people you are defending, I guess–are the ones so seemingly intent on unmasking tutors and their supposed biases and agendas. I just though I’d turn the tables and put them on the receiving end of the same kind of presumptuous pigeonholing and reductionism. They probably won’t like it.
Maybe slightly off course here, but I called CB to cancel the March test a couple weeks ago. They told me the system was down and to wait an hour to call back. I could barely understand the person I was speaking to (nothing new) and could hear the noise of hundreds in the call center behind my call. Between the perceived chaos and a down system, I decided it wasn’t worth having them touch my student’s account and never called back. Just won’t show up that day, and just take the subject tests in June. Frankly, CB and their proven potential for errors scares me.
Growing up in the midwest I have always been comfortable with my kids doing the ACT. Several years ago my oldest took practice tests in both and did way better on ACT, so decision made. In his CA high school, he may have been the only one taking the ACT, everyone thought we were crazy not doing the SAT. And in competitive CA schools, doing the same thing everyone else does is very important. 
Funny how full circle it has come. I was a trend setter and didn’t know it. Ha. 
Stay calm. Just call them tomorrow. Find out why they pushed you to the May date. There is nothing you can do tonight so just relax. Call 1st thing in the morning. Are you in the US? Did they cancel the administration of the test at the site you had requested? That may be something your’ll find out about tomorrow. Can you consider the ACTs?
The other thread about this says the email had information on what to do if you HAVE to take the test in March:
If you are taking the SAT for any of the purposes above and you have a deadline that requires you to take the test in March, please call 866-704-0192 (toll free in the U.S.) or +1 703-297-3965 (international), or email satsupport@collegeboard.org by 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, March 2. Please be prepared to provide information about the program you are applying to along with the deadline. We will review your request and determine if your registration can be reinstated. If you choose not to take the test in May or are already registered for the May test, please call the number above and your March registration fee will be refunded.
Did you get an email informing you of this change? Or did you just find out when you tried to print the ticket? If you didn’t get the email, I’d say you have a valid reason to continue fighting for the March test date despite their arbitrary deadline having been yesterday.
I only found out when i went in to Print the ticket. I have emailed now, i see that they say let them know by March 2 and how would i have when i didn’t even know it myself. I indeed have deadlines from 5-6 universities i’ve applied to who will absolutely deny the admission without SAT.
I’m freaking out and this is something that can ruin my life, I’m desperate for answers. I had my SAT date registered for March 5th and when i went online to print my ticket, i saw that it said May 7th. Now i’m just reading about them bumping adults now and March 5th is the latest latest date i can take SAT on or i will be denied admission everywhere and will lose an year. I had earlier registered for 23th Jan and due to an accident could not attend and requested a university an extension so i can take it on March 5th (after collegeboard denied a makeup test). Now I just called CB and literally one hour on the phone with idiot rep who wouldn’t tell me anything and told me to call tomorrow. I also cannot change SAT date back to March 5th because that registration is closed.
I’m just really worried about this, i feel like having a nervous breakdown right now because if they deny to reinstate and tomorrow is already march 4, i will literally denied admission on the basis of this, i’m already 24 and i can’t wait an year.
Pretty funny–the ACT is still vulnerable to the types of cheating that plagued the SAT in Asia until spring '15. ACT is the “cheatable” test in Asia right now.
@spongybob6587 That’s awful. What 5-6 universities are you applying to and what are their deadlines?
All the deadlines are 1st March to March15, They obviously list last date as Jan 23rd but i requested them an extension to let me take SAT in March at the latest, which they allowed.
Is it just me or calling College Board is like trying to call a cult with the stupidest most annoying dumbheads reps, who all sound the same? it’s an absolute torture. I don’t know what kind of people they hire because they all sound the same to me.
I guess you could call the schools and get another exception. Since you got the first one, you seem to know how to get one. You can show them the email from the College Board. All they can do is say no. Good luck.
It’s not really an extension, it’s what the latest they can accept because the decision is made by April/ May so they are willing to accept materials in March but no later than March. Colleges don’t give out extensions or change policies on student requests. I will get denied and will have to wait another year in case they don’t let me take the test on March 5.
Was this combined? I could’ve sworn it was a separate thread before.
Yes, it was i think mods joined it, i refreshed the page and here i was.
@jgoggs - you seem to think that me and others are “out to get tutors” or something? I’m not even sure what that means. Like beat them up? No, I mean no ill will towards anyone. I said something like “anything that makes life harder for tutors is good”. Maybe I didn’t phrase that properly, but I think I’m sharing a sentiment of @Plotinus (correct me if I’m wrong). For example, if they made the tests much harder, and much harder to prep for, I would think that’d be a Good Thing - and that would make life harder for tutors. Similarly, I dislike tutoring about test strategy. I think it’s great if tutors help kids get better at math, or at reading, or whatever. But just helping kids get better at “taking the SAT” seems like a bridge to nowhere. So in general I would like it if teaching test strategy was less effective. I would also like it if there was much less prepping for standardized tests overall. I don’t think that means I’m trying to “out” tutors or anything like that - just like if I want a simplified tax code, that doesn’t mean I have a personal vendetta against tax accountants.
Getting back to what I think is the point of this thread is - though I’m not 100% sure - does this action make me lose faith in CB?
First of all, my opinion of CB - this company that claims it takes a year to sort PSAT scores to determine NMSF cutoffs, and is incapable of releasing mutually consistent concordance and percentile tables - is so low that it can’t really go any lower.
Secondly, it seems to me that are reasonable and rational reason for recycling test questions. Let’s say hypothetically / unrealistically that in test 1, every question is answered correctly exactly 50% of the time. You then recycle a bunch of those questions to test 2. In test 2, the recycled questions are still answered correctly 50% of the time - but the new questions are answered correctly only 25% of the time. Well, then you have pretty strong evidence that you screwed up, and the new questions are way harder than you meant them to be. This seems to be extremely valuable data in making 2 different tests fair / equivalent.
So, if you assume that they do intend to recycle the questions on this (very first) test (which I think is pretty obvious) - is it right for them to limit the number of adult test takers? I dunno, assuming that all adult test takers are pros / a security risk / whatever is clearly prejudiced and circumstantial, but I can see where they’re coming from. As a parent of a kid taking the SAT this weekend (who’s not ashamed to admit my biases ), I’m in favor of anything that gives my kid a fairer shake. Of course, is this really effective, or is it just security theater? Much like PSAT percentiles, I suspect that none of us really know…
These outcomes are mutually exclusive. The harder the test, the more “prep-able” it becomes. To be honest, I’m not even sure the second outcome is possible–every test I’ve ever heard of can be tutored effectively. And the free Khan Academy angle doesn’t solve the tutoring “problem” either–whatever free option is available, people with lots of money will spend it to get a better option; no matter how good Khan is, someone will do better and charge more doing so.
Go ahead, make my day! This dummy test is killing me. I far prefer “recondite” and “jejune” to “swelling the hallelujahs” and “leaping as an [sic] hart”, and a good properties of integers puzzle to a system of linear equations my 12 year-old son who has never studied algebra can solve with a CAS calculator in 10 seconds.
The problem is that if CB wrote a really hard test, life would be harder for everyone except the really talented and/or motivated kids. Your kid might not be able to make it into the top. The majority of people don’t want that. The masses want a dummy test. The current administration wants a dummy test. Rich people want a dummy test. College admissions officers want a dummy test. Who wants merit?
I invent CAS hacks because the test is so dumb that I can. It is also a way to fend off incipient dementia. I can feel the I.Q. points slipping away every time I look at the test. If the test were challenging, I would stick to substance.
I don’t think the reason for recycling is to make different test forms equatable. ETS has been equating different test forms for decades without recycling more than at most a few questions per test. Maybe it uses similar questions on different forms, but not identical questions with exactly the same answers. You don’t need to recycle whole tests to equate test forms.
The LSAT people retire and release every test after it has been administered. The LSAT people do not have any problem equating test forms.
The reason for recycling that CB has always given is money: it costs a lot of money to develop a new test form, and not that many students take the test internationally or on Sunday, so it is more cost-effective to recycle an existing test.
However, CB is running huge profits. CB management people make huge salaries. How about putting some of that money into ending the practice of test recycling?
In the age of smart-phones, social networks, and ubiquitous broadband, there is no other way to safeguard test security. To think that you can restore test security by banning adult test-takers is ingenuous. Next time the people who are reconstructing unreleased tests will just send in spies who are 21 or younger. It’s not that hard to figure out. They will reconstruct whole tests again. Maybe this is what CB wants: to make a big show of combatting cheating, while in fact facilitating it.
If the SAT math section were like the math Olympics, not so many people would be able to teach it, much less to do it. The market for prep would be much, much smaller. But then it would be an entrance test for Caltech and not a predictor of a 75% chance of a C in math at a community college.
Other countries have much, much harder entrance tests for top universities. There is prep for these tests, but the prep market is much smaller.
The prep market in the US is so large in part because the SAT is “one size fits all”.
@spongbob6587 March SAT results are not available in March. They are not available until mid-May. Unless you got an extension past May, you were not getting results in March anyway. Sorry.
@theshadow CB recycles the entire test… Not bringing together questions from an old test with some new ones. That would be too much work/cost. They just reprint an old test and administer it abroad. Kids can just go in websites like CC , and memorize all the questions/concepts that test takers share.