Collegeboard has repeated several tests internationally. Anyone can google CC to see every past occurrence since someone has always posted about it right after the test.
Why stop at abroad? The entire SAT Subject Tests are administered in US repeatedly, sometimes even closer than two tears in between. Saves lots and lots of money. For what, you might ask?
[quote]
David Coleman, the president and chief executive officer of the College Board, as well as a trustee, earned for the 2013 fiscal year ending June 30, 2014: $690,854 in reportable compensation plus $43,338 in other compensation […] /quote
@spongybob6587 I am having some trouble understanding your posts.
You just joined the board and made your first post yesterday about being 24 years old and having your registration cancelled but needing the March SAT to get into college because the colleges that you applied to will not admit you without an SAT.
So, it appears you are 24, have never before taken the SAT, but you applied to at least 6 colleges with the plan at the time to take the SAT for the first and only time in late January (however you had an accident, and requested extensions which you say the colleges granted, to take the test in March -though you later state that “it wasn’t really an exception” but it was the last date that they would accept).
Is this correct?
If so, I am wondering why you waited until you were 24 and until January of the year of your expected enrollment to take the SAT for the first time? And, even if you were able to complete the test as planned in January, the test results would still have been late for most schools. Further, even if you didn’t have an accident, weather or other issues could have caused you to not be able to take the test as planned.
Also, I wonder why you said that you were granted “extensions” but then said they weren’t really extensions, and thought that the March test would suffice for your applications, since I am unaware of any school - no less 5 or 6- that will accept test results in May (the expected return of the March 5th SAT scores is May 10th) after not only most decision release dates but also most applicant enrollment dates (usually by May 1st.)
Can you please explain so that we might be able to better understand the situation?
This is awful, and it may reveal another problem with the College Board’s communications strategy: many young people don’t actually look at their email very often, so sending them a message that needs action within two or three days is bound to create problems.
My guess is that some test-takers in their 20s who already printed out their admissions tickets before the cancellation will show up at their test centers Saturday morning and discover that they are in the same position as this poster.
Recycling the tests is indefensible. I won’t defend it. I don’t defend CB and you’ll find I am not a CB advocate.
I assume those of you on here who are so upset run businesses? From a profit management standpoint, it is far cheaper for them to bar adults from the testing center and eventually to identify test takers below 21 who have suspicious testing activity- taking tests over more than 3-4 school years for example. They could also add a question to the registration asking the purpose of the test for that individual. Require explanation from someone who takes the test more than X number of times.
All of these things are less expensive ways to secure the test than developing new tests. They aren’t 100 percent but they do reduce the risk.
Most people under 18 are not going to take a test for hire, risk being caught and risk their own college admission. Their parents are not going to let them. Ethical test prep companies will not entice a minor to jeopardize their future.
CB has been under fire for years because their tests skew toward wealthier students. Whatever the reason for that (lots of threads on that already), they have a call from the public to level the playing field. Stopping tutors from refining their skills on real tests and selling those skills to wealthy students is one way to attempt to do that.
Do rich people get advantages in the world? Of course they do, but that does not mean that CB should facilitate that. And full disclosure: I am wealthy and my kids go to a test prep center.
They were; I merged them.
There’s only so far I’m willing to go in responding to silly straw men (“Like beat them up?”) or quotation marks around things I never actually said (“out to get tutors”).
What I think is that certain people in this thread have worked hard to contribute long, informed, and thoughtful posts, while others have simply dropped in without reading anything, posted short erroneous/irrelevant/antagonistic little snippets, and then objected when their unhelpful comments were addressed less diplomatically then I guess they would have hoped.
I’m all for being polite, and I remember apologizing to another poster way back at the beginning of this thread when my use of bold was interpreted as “yelling,” but there’s only so much patience a person can muster for posters who seem determined to make a discussion of testing policy personal (“admit that you’re a tutor; stop being evasive”), who don’t make any effort to educate themselves before they start an argument, and so on.
I agree that some test takers in their 20s might show up not knowing about the change. If that happens, I would feel genuinely bad for them.
To continue the money-saving/paying topic. Mr. Coleman’s sweet earnings are not a new phenomenon…
In that same year
[size = 2 ] Breaking my promise not to post in this thread again. Taking it back, I guess.[/size]
How can they be considered a “non-profit?” Shouldn’t be allowed!
In fact, two of the highest-profile cheating scandals in recent years did indeed involve people in that age group, or not too far above it, taking the test for others. You can Google “Long Island SAT cheating” and “Chinese SAT cheating” for more details.
I challenged other posters in this thread to provide an example of SAT cheating involving adult test takers. So far, the challenge remains unanswered. The best I got was “you’re naive if you don’t believe I’m right,” which is the same sort of rhetoric conspiracy theorists use to try to prove the moon landing was faked.
No idea, @2018eastorwest , but I do wish people would approach the College Board’s pronouncements with the same healthy skepticism you are showing (perhaps correctly) toward “spongybob.”
Tomorrow’s SAT is the first in the new format, and, like all March SATs, it is being given in the U.S. only. As I think has been mentioned earlier, those are two entirely non-suspicious reasons why adults, including adults from other countries, would be interested in taking this particular test and why they would have to fly to the U.S. to take it. Those points do not specifically address your question about why “spongybob” would be taking the test in March, but they do bear some repeating nevertheless.
Some more examples of why the CB likely did what it did, and should also stop recycling tests along with continuing to ban non-students from testing:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/03/adults-banned-from-taking-the-sat-because-they-cheat-on-it-so-much/
(Based on the above link title - some people agree that there are adult non student test takers who cheat)
http://www.fairtest.org/widespread-sat-cheating-continues-asia
http://time.com/3707355/sat-cheating-china/
http://www.barrons.com/articles/sat-integrity-falls-victim-to-china-cheating-scandal-1453713163
But @2018eastorwest , those aren’t new examples; they’ve already been discussed at length in this thread, and they don’t have anything to do with adult test takers.
As a tutor, I can assure you that whether or not I personally sit the test is going to make no or virtually no difference to my ability to tutor. What IS going to make a huge difference is the different content of the test. The test looks to me social-engineered in an attempt to favor some groups and to damage others. Is it a level playing field if some students were taught a passage in school – a reading featured on David Coleman’s Achieve the Core website – before it was put on the October PSAT? ETS calls this “pre-exposure”. It is anathema to test writers. But College Board did it intentionally. Is that fair? Will it happen again on the SAT?
If teachers were treated with respect and paid what they deserve, maybe more of them would
be teaching the not so wealthy kids. You can’t pay teachers nothing, subject them to very
demanding working conditions, and then lament the fact that they look for better situations elsewhere. Banning tutors from the testing room is just paying lip service to leveling the field. A level field means the government invests the resources needed to provide qualified teachers for everyone, including the middle class. But no one really wants that. Because then the gap might get bigger. If the field is really level, the talented people run the fastest and win. A level field does not mean that everyone finishes the same. Further, more money for teachers would mean less money for Big Data and Big Testing Companies. Who wants that…
@jgoggs Do you understand why no one is giving you examples of adults cheating? Because they don’t have to. There is no requirement- not even a moral one- for CB to prove that adults are cheating in order to bar them from the test. Risk management is about managing risks of things likely to happen not just things that have happened. You may want to pretend it is not happening unless I show you proof, but I am a realist.
They don’t even have to bar them solely for cheating. They can say “we don’t want to assist test prep companies in helping some kids, mostly wealthy ones, game the test.” That Plutonius- sits around for fun teaching rich kids his CAS method. This defeats the purpose of the test." That’s it. That wins the PR battle right there.
Yes, I am aware of the Long Island case. I don’t have to Google it to know those kids have a criminal record now. That will follow them forever. I don’t have to tell you that is not “most” kids which is what my post said. A knowledgeable parent would let their kids risk their futures and no ethical test prep company would solicit a minor to do so.
And I said- nothing is 100 percent. It does not have to be.
@jgoggs Yes, they do have to do with adult test taker. No matter how many times you are unwilling to acknowledge it, one of the key reasons why adult non-student test takers were banned is said to be due to security concerns (cheating) that these adult non students pose.
See for yourself - here are some quotes from one of the articles I linked regarding cheating by adult non-student test takers:
The College Board, which administers the popular SAT test, has announced an abrupt rule change that will bar adults and all other non-students from taking the SAT March 5.
The move, it says, is necessary due to heightened concerns about cheating, and may be connected to an explosion in systemic cheating in Asia.**
Typically, the SAT has been open to anybody who wants to take it, not just those who need it for college applications. Notably, many adults who work in the field of standardized test prep take it in order to improve their teaching ability (while also demonstrating their personal expertise).
But now, the College Board is suddenly cutting them off.
******* In an unprecedent move it says is needed to prevent cheating, the College Board is barring non-students from taking the coming March 5 test.**********
The dramatic gesture comes after repeated scandals have undermined confidence in the security of the College Board’s tests. In particular, the surge of Asians taking the SAT to apply to American schools
************ has led to unscrupulous test prep companies elevating cheating to an advanced science.**************
Because the College Board frequently recycles questions from the U.S. versions of the test, a system has developed in which
Asian test prep companies pay operatives in the U.S. to either obtain illegal copies of tests or simply take the test themselves and memorize the questions. Prospective cheaters also reconstruct questions by reading online forums where students discuss tests after taking them.***
That’s not the only way to cheat. All the tests administered on a given day are identical, so
companies will have operatives take a test in an early time zone, then use subterfuge to send phone messages about the questions to those taking the test later in the day.****
Bob Schaeffer, the public education director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of modern standardized tests, suggested
endemic Asian cheating was a key factor behind the College Board’s move.***
Did it escape your attention that I spent many hours posting explanations of CAS on CC? These posts are available for free to everyone, rich, poor, or middle-class. No one paid me to write them. This is whistle-blowing. Or did that subtle aspect of my posts escape your keen notice?
What defeats the purpose of the test is writing mindless questions that a 12 year-old who knows no algebra can solve with a CAS calculator. Complain to College Board; don’t blame the messenger. Tell College Board to write a serious test and to ban calculators from the testing room.
Disclosure: My handle is “Plotinus” not “Plutonius,” and I am a “she” not a “he.” I understand that my handle may have confused you about my gender.
Wonderful @gettingschooled. I’m thrilled that you agree with me that no one is giving me examples of adults cheating. Since you and @2018eastorwest seem to be on the same “side” in this discussion, could you please inform him/her that his/her posts do not, in fact, provide examples of cheating among adult test takers? I’ve tried over and over again but to no avail.
As you will see above, @2018eastorwest’s newest bit of supposed evidence is the headline–yes, the headline–of an article from the conservative “Daily Caller” blog. The article, which does not contain any actual reporting but instead simply consolidates information and quotes from actual news sites (“… the College Board said in its email, published by the Washington Post…”; “…Bob Schaeffer told the Chronicle of Higher Education…”), manages to get some basic facts very badly wrong (“All the tests administered on a given day are identical”) and to misspell certain words (“unprecedented”). More importantly–sigh–it does not contain a single example of a single case in which cheating was caused by adults taking the test. Just a jokey, click-baity headline that says adults cheat…
So please, @gettingschooled, if we can at least agree on this point, could you perhaps talk a little sense into @2018eastorwest?
As for your own post @gettingschooled, let’s just review some key points: (1) Those who had their registrations cancelled were in fact eligible to register according to the College Board’s own policies; (2) they registered according to the procedures set forth by the College Board; (3) they paid and received confirmation emails and admissions tickets; (4) many no doubt made long-term plans on the basis of their confirmed registrations; (5) the College Board unilaterally canceled those registrations with only five days’ notice and unilaterally reassigned test-takers to dates to which they had not agreed; (6) the appeal process provided promised to disrupt test-takers’ final week of studying, even if they were ultimately successful in having their registrations reinstated.
And a few more points for you, @gettingschooled : (1) the College Board is a nonprofit, which means it receives some tax benefits from society at large; (2) the College Board has entered into partnerships with several states and is trying to enter into more such partnerships, meaning it has voluntarily taken on a position of public trust.
There is a limit to how much we can argue about things like “moral requirements,” but given all of the above, I wouldn’t think it would be too outrageous if I were to argue as follows: Given the position of public trust the College Board seeks to occupy, and given the position of trust it necessarily occupies with every individual test taker, it is indeed wrong for the College Board to cancel paid and confirmed registrations unilaterally and with little notice unless it can give some compelling reason. In this case, it is has fairly clearly failed to do so.
This, @gettingschooled , is why the question of whether adult test takers cause cheating is so relevant.
It seems a key part of the redesign was intended to tackle the problem of unfair tutoring advantages:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article63992192.html#storylink=cpy
As the College Board needs colleges, I’m certain the colleges approve the changes in the SAT. Colleges are able to track whether enrolled students over- or underperform their SAT scores. The deans of admission for Harvard and Yale are cited in this article.
I assume tutors can sign up to use Khan Academy too. There are apparently 4 tests available through Khan Academy. Of course, if Khan uses predictive tech, an adult who knows all the tricks may not be able to see certain questions, because they’re just too good?
I do think that the biggest advantage with unethical tutoring may be to have memorized the hardest questions before the day of the test. Limiting adult access is part and parcel of improving test security.