College Board Says 4,000 SAT Scores Wrong

Test Preparation
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<p>"About 4,000 students who took the main SAT college entrance exam last October received incorrectly low scores because of problems with the scanning of their answer sheets.
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<p>The College Board, which owns the exam, notified college admissions offices of the mistake and provided the proper scores for affected students in a letter received by some Tuesday afternoon. A College Board spokeswoman, Jennifer Topiel, said students would be notified by e-mail Thursday. Affected students will be refunded their fees from that sitting, the letter said.</p>

<p>Topiel, said the "vast majority of students" affected received scores that were within 100 points of their correct score on the three-section, 2,400-point test.</p>

<p>Admissions officials, however, said Tuesday some students had been affected by as much as 130 points — forcing them to scramble to re-evaluate candidates at a time when many are trying to make final decisions.</p>

<p>"For some this means a scholarship adjustment, for some it means admission to a more selective program within the school," said Jacquelyn Nealon, dean of admissions and financial aid at New York Institute of Technology, where she said between 25 and 50 applicants were affected.</p>

<p>"We'll pull all those folders tomorrow and reach out to any students," she said. "For a school that processes tens of thousands of applications, this is major."</p>

<p>Bruce Poch, vice president and dean of admission at Pomona College in California, where about a half-dozen applicants were affected, said he was told by a College Board official the problem primarily affected a testing site on the East Coast. But Topiel said the students who did not receive credit for some answers were spread around the country.</p>

<p>Fewer than 1 percent of students who took the test in October were affected, Topiel said. All tests from that sitting, as well as from two others, were rescanned.</p>

<p>The investigation was prompted by a routine request for a score verification.</p>

<p>"We immediately launched a thorough investigation into the scoring of that test," she said. "After that investigation, we confirmed that there was a systemic issue."</p>

<p>The letter described the grading problem as a technical issue but Topiel said the College Board was still investigating what went wrong."</p>

<p>http: //news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap<em>on</em>re<em>us/sat</em>scoring_mistake</p>

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<p>Lol... My first reaction to that article was logging in my Collegebard account to see if my scores were wrong...</p>

<p>Unfortunately, they were not... :D</p>

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<p>I saw that...why couldn't it have been the November test?!?! I took that test and would gladly accept a few more points! lol.</p>

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<p>It says it's mostly on the east coast ...no extra pts for me =(</p>

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<p>why not decembers??</p>

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<p>well according to the nyimes (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/education/08sat.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/education/08sat.html&lt;/a&gt;)
"Ms. Coletti said the problem grew out of the scanning of answer sheets in Texas so that the sheets could be graded by computer."</p>

<p>-hmm, im from texas. i didnt like my score too much....</p>

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<p>yesss texas kid right here also. I did horrible on my oct SATs</p>

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<p>AHHH!!!</p>

<p>I was one of those people!</p>

<p>My Scores for the october test were REALLY REALLY OFF!</p>

<p>My Critical reading was off by 90 points, my math was off by 80, that's 170 points error! </p>

<p>I knew something was off when I got my scores and it was in the mid 600's when i'm used to being in the mid 700's, so I requested a score report. When I saw the score report, I was shocked to see that two sections were almost competely omitted.</p>

<p>It was a HUGE problem to get the hand scoring because of ETS sticking by such a complicated beuracracy! They didn't want to do anything at all and kept asking for a fee of $50. I played by their rules. At around Thanksgiving, I officially requested the handscoring and waited weeks and weeks and weeks. It said on the site that it would take about 5 weeks, so after 5 weeks, i called them because I still had no response. They had the nerve to tell me that they didn't count weekends and holidays as business days! So I had to wait until FEBRUARY 2 for the change on my SAT score page on the internet to appear (Not even a mail or an email!)</p>

<p>They didn't send a formal apology either, I had to badger them about my SAT scores, I had to call all my colleges one by one in order to inform them of the situation. It wasn't until MARCH 2 that they sent the score change to my colleges. My family and I have gone through much more hassle than we deserved, and because of their mistake, I was too insecure to do early decision or even apply to the top schools I would have had a chance to attend had I known my CORRECT SCORE. I have no idea what this cost me, but it could have meant the difference between Ivy and just private.</p>

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<p>therefore...college board should die.</p>

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<p>Dell, that seriously sucks! I'm really sorry for you :-(.</p>

<p>what was your final score, if you don't mind me asking?</p>

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<p>Any chance it affected the subject tests as well?</p>

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<p>Nope the article clearly states the problem lay with only the New Sat 1 test .. </p>

<p>also well the problem ain't very much only restricted to Texas or east coast . coz well the regions also as well receive the thousands of answer sheets from international locations too..</p>

<p>it states the problem occurred at Texas but not that the students are from Texas..
the official email notifications will be up on Thursday to all students affected and changes in websites will also be brought up then .. not now.. so if you are affected , chances are you'll know by tomorrow.. </p>

<p>and they have as a precautionary measure recked all versions of test for November and December as well..</p>

<p>SM</p>

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<p>gosh i never expect collegeboard to be THAT screwed up. wonder if i'm one of the lucky or shall i say unlucky 4000 ppl...</p>

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<p>johnnydr87</p>

<p>My revised scores were 740 CR 720 Math! I should have ED NYU!</p>

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<p>lets seee and wait for tomorrow to find out who the other 4000 ppl are ...</p>

<p>SM</p>

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<p>and, not to sidetrack, but I will, these people in Texas want eletronic voting with ni paper trail, imagine if you had no paper trail</p>

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<p>Have to wonder if the tests were being scanned in east Texas, which was having rolling brownouts due to Hurricane Rita in October.</p>

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<p>Dell101,,, Why on earth didn't you take the test more than once. only taking the test once doesn't make sense,, like what if you woke up sick the day of the test. you should have at least taken it twice just to see if you could have improved. Not to take away the fact that CollegeBoard really F--ed up and you should have every right to complain.</p>

<p>Another SAT story,, one of my friends actually got lost trying to find the High School that people at our school travel to,, so he ended up missing the October SAT and having to retake it in like December I think.</p>

<p>anyways he ended up getting a 1140 or 1160 but since he got his scores so late and he just put off applying to college he just decided to take a Gap year. I'm not sure what he really wants to do but I think it's his fault for only taking the SAT once. you shouldn't leave your future up to one Day,, who knows you might get lost and be late.</p>

<p>But even if my scores were about 100 points more then I still would probably have ended up at Penn State. although a 1360 would have caused me to at least apply to some bigger name schools.</p>

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<p>Dell101, I am sorry that you had to go through this - must be very frustrating. Have you considered writing a letter/email to the Ivy school(s) that you wanted to go to explaining that you would have applied if you would have had accurate scores. They may just give you some consideration.</p>

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<p>My son took his first sat in may 05 and scored 1400+. He was heading to apply some ivy but 1400+ was not top enough. Also with the financial change of the family we really hope that he will do good on his sat and get some merit scholarship. so he tried really hard and he told his second sat on oct 05(he had to take satII physic on june 05) but get screwed up by collegeboard. We were so discouraged by the oct 05 wrong score which was only 1290 (170 less than actual because of collegeboard error and he did 40 points better in his writing on the second sat). </p>

<p>With the big contrast of the 2 test results, any college will think that he was getting the 1400+ the first time by luck only! Base on this we did not apply ED. But ED should boost up his chance to some college like NYU, JHU, cooper union...... </p>

<p>He is too upset with the whole situation and need time to cool down so I join in the conversation here!</p>