<p>This student is absolutely justified. The College Board essentially has control over college entrance examinations (with the ACT), and yet they have claimed little liability in this case. They are to blame, and thus this student will have his day in court.</p>
<p>I can't believe anyone would actually accept the rain as a legitimate excuse. I took my ACT in rain, and they still figured out how to grade it correctly.</p>
<p>yep CB needs to be blamed for this.</p>
<p>Bravo!!! This kid has every right in the world to fill a class-action lawsuit against CB for its improper handling of the October SAT test. Just because you guys haven't been affected by this mishap, that doesn't make the situation for the thousands or 1% of test takers that did have their scores drastically reduced by this incident. In fact, there was a poster on CC whose SAT score was off 400 POINTS from what it was supposed to be(2100 but showed up as 1700). Now go ahead and tell that poor kid and hundreds like him/her that SAT scores aren't everything when now they're forced to attend their state schools because they figured it would be a waste of their efforts/resources to apply to an Ivy after Collegeboard's breakdown in October.</p>
<p>Many of you CC posters seem to automatically believe that every person applying to college these days in the country is applying to an Ivy League school where the admissions process is more holistic and recs/essays/interviews are considered along side with the usual grades and scores. However, 99% of normal American teenagers(those who actually plan to attend college lol), who were probably the demographic most affected by the October affair, probably applied to state schools where grades/scores do mean EVERYTHING and this Collegeboard debacle costed hundreds of these people a spot at at a state/top 200 university and they now will be forced to attend a community college.</p>
<p>Even if this was a relatively minor and innocent error made by Collegeboard in Ocitober, ETS/Pearson/Collegeboard should still face the American justice system and answer to their misdeeds because in the competitve world of college admissions today, there is ABSOLUTELY no room for error and there will be a heavy price to pay for those involved.</p>
<p>Just my $0.02 cents.</p>
<p>As the parent of a graduating senior S, having made it through the last two years of testing and applications, what I cannot understand is this: what possible reasoning could there be for not re-scoring the students who had inflated test scores? If they correctly upscored the ones who were reported low, why wouldn't they correctly re-score the 600 whose scores were artificially high? Shouldn't they have the accurate results they paid for? Those 600 students were then privy to acceptance and scholarship offers that were not exactly earned by the rules...even if it was only a hundred points - that can make a huge difference!</p>
<p>I feel so sorry for the students whose scores were mis-represented. We all know what most of these kids go through in their quest for the best opportunities. If the end result of the lawsuit is that the test takers have their money refunded and that CollegeBoard is a little more careful to whom they sub-contract, then fine. All it does is raise awareness on the part of the general public. Our students don't have a choice as to who scores their test; they paid for the privilege of taking the test and assume that they paid for accurate and fair scoring.</p>
<p>The whole process has gotten completely out of control, and who is the winner here? Yep, the test prep companies and the testing administrators.</p>
<p>So don't blame the student who brings the suit; I agree with it, because accountability trumps it all in this college admissions game.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Bravo!!! This kid has every right in the world to fill a class-action lawsuit against CB for its improper handling of the October SAT test. Just because you guys haven't been affected by this mishap, that doesn't make the situation for the thousands or 1% of test takers that did have their scores drastically reduced by this incident. In fact, there was a poster on CC whose SAT score was off 400 POINTS from what it was supposed to be(2100 but showed up as 1700). Now go ahead and tell that poor kid and hundreds like him/her that SAT scores aren't everything when now they're forced to attend their state schools because they figured it would be a waste of their efforts/resources to apply to an Ivy after Collegeboard's breakdown in October.</p>
<p>Many of you CC posters seem to automatically believe that every person applying to college these days in the country is applying to an Ivy League school where the admissions process is more holistic and recs/essays/interviews are considered along side with the usual grades and scores. However, 99% of normal American teenagers(those who actually plan to attend college lol), who were probably the demographic most affected by the October affair, probably applied to state schools where grades/scores do mean EVERYTHING and this Collegeboard debacle costed hundreds of these people a spot at at a state/top 200 university and they now will be forced to attend a community college.</p>
<p>Even if this was a relatively minor and innocent error made by Collegeboard in Ocitober, ETS/Pearson/Collegeboard should still face the American justice system and answer to their misdeeds because in the competitve world of college admissions today, there is ABSOLUTELY no room for error and there will be a heavy price to pay for those involved.</p>
<p>Just my $0.02 cents.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Great post. I totally agree.</p>
<p>I'm not so sure about the suit. I am sure the student is disappointed, but that isn't enough. Did he choose not to apply at a preferred school because he felt his score was inadequate? If so, did he err in judgement, and thereby his mistake by choosing not to try? Would the reasonable and prudent thing been to have still applied at one's favorite school? </p>
<p>Typically a litigant has to prove specifically how he was adversely affected to collect damages. It would be very difficult to prove how he's been affected. Will he have sworn affadavits from colleges he preferred saying they would have accepted him but they turned him down solely because of low scores? Now that this error is public, will no college accept his corrected score? Will no college accept him? Can he document the school he will be attending is inferior to the one that turned him down because of his scores? Mighty hard to prove.</p>
<p>my 2 cents</p>
<p>Quote:
Bravo!!! This kid has every right in the world to fill a class-action lawsuit against CB for its improper handling of the October SAT test. Just because you guys haven't been affected by this mishap, that doesn't make the situation for the thousands or 1% of test takers that did have their scores drastically reduced by this incident. In fact, there was a poster on CC whose SAT score was off 400 POINTS from what it was supposed to be(2100 but showed up as 1700). Now go ahead and tell that poor kid and hundreds like him/her that SAT scores aren't everything when now they're forced to attend their state schools because they figured it would be a waste of their efforts/resources to apply to an Ivy after Collegeboard's breakdown in October.</p>
<p>Many of you CC posters seem to automatically believe that every person applying to college these days in the country is applying to an Ivy League school where the admissions process is more holistic and recs/essays/interviews are considered along side with the usual grades and scores. However, 99% of normal American teenagers(those who actually plan to attend college lol), who were probably the demographic most affected by the October affair, probably applied to state schools where grades/scores do mean EVERYTHING and this Collegeboard debacle costed hundreds of these people a spot at at a state/top 200 university and they now will be forced to attend a community college.</p>
<p>Even if this was a relatively minor and innocent error made by Collegeboard in Ocitober, ETS/Pearson/Collegeboard should still face the American justice system and answer to their misdeeds because in the competitve world of college admissions today, there is ABSOLUTELY no room for error and there will be a heavy price to pay for those involved.</p>
<p>Just my $0.02 cents. </p>
<p>^^^great post, i agree completely</p>
<p>The College Board is basically a MONOPOLY. If they screw up we have a very limted amount of choices (ACT?!, yea ok..) They made a big mistake, and should pay for it because they are misleading the people who pay the 60 dollarers to take this test and study for years...</p>
<p>i totally agree with the lawsuit. All these kids spent 4 hours in a classroom reading small print and nervously bubbling in letter choices that they hope/know are correct and a lot of these kids probably spent lots of time and money to study for this one test. For many people, including myself, waiting for your scores to come in the mail is almost as nerve wracking as waiting for college admissions decisions. If CB, whose only task is to give and correctly grade the tests, gives me a grade 400 points lower than what i expected to earn then i would probably break down and cry because all the hard work i put in throughout the years going to SAT tutoring suddenly became a wasted effort.</p>
<p>$0.02 cents is 2 cents cents =D just fyi</p>
<p>I cannot believe anyone would disagree that the College Board is responsible for their mistake. Especially anyone on this site where posting your SAT scores is paramount everytime anyone lists anything about admission stats. Imagine you scored a 2200 but the collegeboard posted 1800 or even 2100. We all know 100 points
(much less 400) can make a difference at any school: Ivies, public you name it. The ramifications are so huge for that one kid I cannot even imagine why anyone would doubt a law suit. There most certainly should have been checks in place and from what I have read, the College Board has been warned about this before. If anything maybe it should point the need to examine why colleges put so much importance on a test that obviously is fallible. What I see at my daughter's private school are parents willing to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars to raise their child's SAT score. Why is everyone doing this if it is not one of the most important parts of the college application? On all of the "What are my chances?" forums, if the SAT is not perfect or close to it, you can bet someone will say " raise your SAT". Now add to the mix your test score may be off from 50 to 400 points even after you have taken prep courses or studied so hard your 4 years of high school. I know that as people we will always make mistakes but something impacting a college decision and later a career is one of the most important decisions any person can make. I just cannot believe there isn't more outrage to tell you the truth. And yes I agree with the above posts that stated those that were graded higher should be corrected as well. Scholarships, admission..eveything depends on test scores. They are supposed to be the great equalizer since comparing high school GPAs is so difficult. And now we must accept that they can be off 400 points??? No, this cannot be.</p>
<p>I'm glad someone finally sued them. I hope they go out of business.</p>
<p>In case you haven't RTA, here's an interesting part of it...</p>
<p>"Snodgrass' firm won a multimillion-dollar settlement from Pearson in 2002 for scoring errors in Minnesota that affected more than 8,000 students, some of whom missed graduation ceremonies after being told they failed a state-required exam.</p>
<p>The lawsuit alludes to the Minnesota mistake and others in alleging that Pearson has taken shortcuts.</p>
<p>"The College Board contracted with Pearson despite the fact that Pearson is no stranger to botching test scores," the lawsuit reads."</p>
<p>Whether College Board is responsible or not is questionable. They contracted Pearson to do something for them well and Pearson did a bad job. It really depends on what kind of contract College Board has with Pearson.</p>
<p>The irony of this lawsuit is that College Board is potentially being penalized for the one policy it seems to have that favors students. The bulk of the suit is based on people being harmed when they have to compete against test takers whose scores would have been adjusted downwards as a result of the error. College Board took the position that it would only adjust scores upward if there was an error, so in this case, if there was a mistake on Pearson's part, the student would never been penalized.</p>
<p>Well you should never take points away from the students. I know in class if a teacher messes up grading they only correct it if it benefits the student (for example, they wouldn't take points away if you had a wrong answer they marked right).</p>
<p>"The College Board contracted with Pearson despite the fact that Pearson is no stranger to botching test scores," the lawsuit reads."</p>
<p>If that's the basis of the lawsuit, that's kind of dumb. Even lawyers lose cases occasionally.</p>
<p>I think they have a good case.</p>
<p>I'm glad someone's suing them, really glad. These collegeboard [langauge deleted] take advantage of all these high schoolers out there. $50 or so to take the test, and additional TWENTY if you apply after a certain date (yeah, as if it really matters to them. Just another way for them to make money) and then they charge $8 to send a report that takes 3-6 weeks to reach the college. Oh, and if you want it there in a week? $20 per school!! This kid in St. Paul probably studied his ass off for several years for this SAT and now he can't gain admission to one of his dream schools because of THEM??? Now he probably either has to take a year off or go to a school and then transfer out.</p>
<p>[last sentence deleted for language]</p>
<p>I hope they don't win this lawsuit. Honestly...it's ridiculous to sue over score. Human error is apart of everything that is done.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Of course SATs are not everything; however, you can be pretty sure, just by sheer statistics, that a student with a 1300 will have less of a chance of getting into Harvard than a student with a 1600. The numbers do not lie.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Or do they? </p>
<p>Half of the kids who apply to Harvard with 1600's get in. Probably about 10% of those with 1300's get in (only because of AA, mind you.) But just because there is a correlation doesn't mean there's a cause. In essence, just because kids with lower SAT scores get accepted at a lower clip doesn't necesarily mean it was the SAT scores that were holding them back. All the Defense Attorney needs to prove is that in general, a person who is smart enough to score a 1600 on his SAT's is also smart enough to churn out a better, more well-polished application then someone with a 1300 SAT. Not hard to do.</p>