College Board Overlooks Cheating?

Test Preparation
1

It appears that the College Board does not punish students who cheat or prep academies that promote cheating. Despite countless reports of cheating that parents and students send to College Board, the organization releases the scores without a thorough investigation. It seems that the most that the College Board does is release the test scores at a later date.

Let’s think about it. What is the likelihood of multiple students’ receiving 2,400 from one high school? Not 2~3 students from a top ten boarding school but 7~10 students from one high school in South Korea or China? That is not all! It may or may not be an exaggeration but some people say that this one high school in South Korea did not have a single student who received below 2,300 on the January 2015 test.

This kind of widespread cheating merits a full-blown investigation and punishment of the students, the prep academies, and the high schools. The victims are not only limited to students in South Korea and China but across the world. Most students work very hard to earn their scores, not buy them from academies. Also, college board and high school counselors should not tolerate and overlook such illegal activities.

According articles on Google, such as the one by Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/21/new-cheating-concerns-raised-about-sat-being-given-in-asia-on-jan-24/), it is clear that College Board knew about the leak in the International Version of the SAT. In fact, College Board was aware that prep academies in South Korea and China had a copy of the test before it was actually administered. Yet, it did not change the test.

So, the students knew the essay topics beforehand and had written it out before going into the test. Some really dumb kids who apparently memorized the version that the prep academies gave and ended up receiving a zero on the essay. However, some of the smarter students were not dumb enough and wrote a different version of the essay. Regardless, all these kids literally spent less than five minutes on each section and slept the remainder of the time. Most of them received 2,300 to 2,400.

No parties involved suffered any consequences for this illegal and immoral activity!

If you are a student who works hard, you are also a victim. You deserve to be enraged as I am. You have to urge College Board to take responsibility and ensure that each student gets a fair shot at his or her dream school and take action!

2

Oh please, what a bunch of nonsense!

What evidence do you have that 7 out of every 10 students from some high school in Korea or China received 2,400? If you’re going to base your “test vigilante” crusade based on hearsay and exaggerated rumors, then probably you’re better off promoting an AIDS awareness campaign in Asia, because it’s a lot more likely that people here will believe you if you lie and tell them that 7 out of every 10 people who have unprotected sex contract AIDS!

The College Board released the test scores of those in Asia in January because they have determined that the cheating was, in fact, limited to a very select few, not because they tried to cover up some grand conspiracy that you have conjured up in your mind! Hah!

I just love how you post a link to Valerie’s article when both Strauss and Schaeffer have proven themselves to be nothing more than a bunch of frauds, but of course, yoou have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?

3

Obviously you are one of the South Korean students who received 2,400 by cheating because you can’t even comprehend that I said 7~10, not 7 out of 10. You also probably attend that school. It is obvious that you also didn’t read the Washington Post article.

4

Now it’s obvious because I pointed out what a fraud you are that I’m one of the 7 to 10 students (sorry, not 7 of 10) who attended one of those cheating schools and got a 2,400? Puhaha.

And what I have missed about that article that makes you think I didn’t read it? Are you even aware that the same people who wrote this article said they received an advance copy of the U.S. June 2014 exam and said it would appear on the January exam, when actual events have clearly proven otherwise?

Then again, for someone who posts a link from Strauss and viciously attacks anyone who disagrees with her or Schaeffer, should we really expect anything less?

5

I will not reply to you any longer because you, as a Korean student, know which school I am talking about and that I am giving you facts about the school’s performance.

6

What school are you talking about? If 7 to 10 kids really cheated at this particular center of ongoing criminal activity, let’s not bother with ETS. Let’s take it up with the FBI and maybe they’ll implement the RICO statutes.

7

Is that you ConcernedK aka CleanSAT and now testvigilante??? If so, you really gotta stop girl!

8

yes. fbi doea need to get involved.

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@testvigilante‌ Do you have a source for the 7 to 10 figure? I certainly believe there is widespread cheating, but I think that may be an exaggeration for just one high school.

Let me put it this way. In my country, Turkey, you have to be in the top 2000 out of 1 million students in eighth grade to gain admission to one of the 3-4 English language schools. Students of these schools are often wealthy enough to spend their summers learning English in the UK and US from the age of 7. They go to The Princeton Review’s expensive prep schools and often spend more than a year prepping for the SAT. Yet no one in the history of a country of 75 million people has EVER scored a 2400.

Now, one could argue that these 2400 scoring Koreans or Chinese kids are inherently smarter or work harder. If that’s the case I have the utmost respect for them. However, the sheer number of perfect scorers, and the ETS delaying scores for these countries and not mine makes that hard to believe. Let’s face it, the college board has a reputation to protect. They would probably would cover this up if it weren’t widespread enough to cause a s***storm.

Perhaps this bit is not important, but I have a little story to share. A few minutes after taking the December SAT, I googled one of the questions and found a load of questions which appeared on the test on a Chinese website. Yes, I know the international tests are recycled but how does one compile all of the questions word to word? That pretty much cleared my last doubts that there was cheating.

The colleges will probably look at all applications from Korea and China with a grain of salt this year. The cheaters have blackballed their honest compatriots and, to a lesser extent, all internationals. Bravo.

Just my 2 cents as a disgruntled self-prepping international.

10

If you read those articles (and their source at FairTest: http://www.fairtest.org/widespread-sat-cheating-continues-asia), you will see that the alleged leakage involved the June 2014 U.S. test, which was said to be slated for reuse internationally in January 2015.

If you read the discussion threads about the January 2015 international test, however, you will discover that the test actually reused in China and Korea was the October 2012 international.

@testvigilante‌ – can you explain how leakage of the June 2014 U.S. test could have facilitated cheating on the January 2015 SAT when the June 2014 U.S. test was reused exactly nowhere in January 2015?

It is tough to take screeds like yours seriously when they fail to make even a perfunctory effort to make sense.

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This is already happening. Duke for instance funnels all applicants from China to a separate interview service instead of the normal alumni interview.

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Well, there are prep academies that call students in the night before the exam, and on the next day, students end up taking the same tests. It is impossible that 7 to 10 kids from one school on one test date get perfect scores. This has happened repeatedly at multiple schools in South Korea.

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The College Board needs to stop recycling tests.

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@testvigilante‌

People lie, but numbers do not.

The College Board has an extensive database of the past scores of all its former students such that it can easily determine whether there are statistical anomalies or aberrations of scores in any particular region or among a specific subset of students that warrant a mass cancellation.

In other words, let’s say that over the past 20 years, only 0.07% of all Korean students who have taken the SAT received a 2400 with slight and very minute variations in percentage from test to test. However, let’s say that on this particular January test, over 8% of all Korean students who took the international exam worldwide received 2400. Such a confounding disparity in numbers or percentages could only mean that kids most likely did cheat and that the January exam was, in fact, compromised.

Now if we’re talking about 7 to 10 students at one particular school receiving perfect 2400s out of, say, 40-50 students, then yes, such scores would be abnormal and indicate that the students may have and most likely cheated. Yet, do you not think that the College Board or ETS could easily pull up the sheets and numbers to verify such abnormalities and take the appropriate measures?

So what do you think it means when most of the scores in Asia were released and no specific schools in Korea or China were targeted?

It means that the cheating wasn’t really that widespread as one might believe, although these articles with fabricated facts from the Washington Post somehow seem to lend credence to your vindicative tirades, and that you’re merely passing on exaggerated rumors that have no basis in reality or fact.

Or are we naive enough to really believe that 7 to 10 kids at most of the international schools in Korea and in China are getting 2400s and the College Board is doing nothing about it at all?

Let us give the College Board the credit that it’s due and understand that it will and has taken the appropriate measures when necessary. I mean, did the College Board just overlook cheating when it cancelled the administration of the SAT in May 2013 in South Korea, or when it cancelled the scores of some 900 Korean students in 2007?

But these continuous rants and posts naming random teachers in the Korean SAT industry and accusing them of cheating, or telling us that the June 2014 U.S. exam is being circulated among Korean academies and sold for thousands of dollars, and now these bogus rumors of 7 to 10 students receiving 2400 at some school in Korea, make you look, well, just plain dumb.

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@sgopal2 @burak96‌

“The colleges will probably look at all applications from Korea and China with a grain of salt this year. The cheaters have blackballed their honest compatriots and, to a lesser extent, all internationals. Bravo.”

The reality is that if colleges genuinely made an effort to change its admissions process or pressure the College Board to change its testing procedures, the widespread cheating in Asia would and could greatly be reduced. But of course, when you have all these cheating Asians paying full freight for tuition, money that is used to fund scholarships, pay for new libraries and keep the professors happy with their massive salaries, it benefits everyone to turn a blind eye, doesn’t it?

I mean, let’s be real, as much as you want to hate on the Asians for cheating, we’re not the ones setting the bar.

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The College Board obviously does not want to admit that it has no control over the security of the tests because it does not want to lose credibility. The 2007 test cancellation was necessary because some dumb teacher posted on his blog the answers to the tests before the scores were released and boasted that he was able to give the answers before the test was given. The same dumb teacher still markets his academy claiming that he is able to give the correct answers 96.8% of the time. The fact of the matter is… he is the only idiot that openly stresses his success rate. There are many others that do it more tactfully. Still, the words get out. Everyone knows the academies that promote cheating in South Korea. I probably only have to give the first letters of each academy and everyone in Korea would know. Also, the schools that overlook cheating are already widespread knowledge.

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I have no stake in this. But I am curious: why is this so important to you? There are so many schools in the US that even if I were to buy your argument-- how does it effect you?

And, no, I’m not Asian.

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@testvigilante‌

That’s messed up. Why you gotta take a stab at Jeffrey like that. I’m telling on you. HAHAHA.

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@bjkmom

Well, obviously, since I’m one of those lucky 7 kids who received a special advantage and got a 2400 and testvigilante keeps saying I probably cheated, I am very disturbed indeed.

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I’m sorry, I meant the OP, not you.

But, to be honest, who cares what a stranger online thinks? Pretty much any time anyone gets a perfect score at anything, there will be those who cry foul… it’s a lot easier than getting a perfect score yourself, ya know??

Congrats to you, AlfredoKim, on a remarkable achievement!!!