First lawsuit about misscored SATs

Applying to College
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<p>From CNN.com:</p>

<p>Lawsuit: Company grading SATs blew it
Company responds that excess moisture may have caused errors</p>

<p>Saturday, April 8, 2006; Posted: 4:32 p.m. EDT (20:32 GMT)</p>

<p>ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) -- A high school senior whose SAT was incorrectly scored low is suing the board that oversees the exam and the testing company that was hired.</p>

<p>The lawsuit, filed late Friday in Minnesota, is the first since last month's announcement that 4,411 students got incorrectly low scores and that more than 600 had better results than they deserved on the October test.</p>

<p>It names the nonprofit College Board and the for-profit Pearson Educational Measurement, which has offices in Minnesota's Hennepin County.</p>

<p>"Any type of a high-stakes test that impacts a life event like college, scholarships and financial aid has to be scored with 100 percent accuracy," St. Paul attorney T. Joseph Snodgrass said Saturday. "There is no room for error in this type of a situation."</p>

<p>Pearson spokesman David Hakensen said Saturday that the company won't comment on pending litigation. College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti also declined to comment.</p>

<p>The lawsuit, filed by attorneys for an unidentified high school senior in Dix Hills, New York, seeks class-action status. Lawyers want to allow anyone who took the test in October except those who got a marked-up score to join the lawsuit.</p>

<p>The suit also seeks unspecified damages, an order requiring adjustment of the inflated scores and a refund of the test fee.</p>

<p>Test-takers whose scores were made too low had their results corrected, but the College Board has declined to fix the inflated scores. That has angered some college officials who say they could unfairly influence admissions and scholarship decisions.</p>

<p>The SAT is taken by more than 2 million students and used by many colleges as a factor in admissions. The 2,400-point exam measures reasoning skills in reading, writing and math.</p>

<p>The October test was taken by nearly a half-million students, so the error affected fewer than 1 percent of the results. The College Board maintains most were off by 100 points or fewer, but some students saw much wider swings.</p>

<p>Pearson has said the culprit may have been excessive moisture that caused answer sheets to expand and some marks to be unreadable. The error was discovered when the College Board asked the company to hand-score some tests.</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>

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<p>College admissions this year for the class of 2006 was seriously messed up.</p>

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<p>I hope that this will cripple CollegeBoard's monopoly on tests.</p>

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<p>WOW suing over loss of 100 pts. What whiny babies.</p>

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<p>Actually, even though I completely disagree w/ people suing for millions over such things as getting fat from fast food, I do support this lawsuit. The collegeboard has made so much money off of students. Every time you send off the CSS Profile you have to pay a $5 fee and an additional $18 to each college it is sent to. The SATs are ~$42. How exactly are they non-profit? They've made nearly $400 off of me alone!!!</p>

<p>Phyllo: "I hope that this will cripple CollegeBoard's monopoly on tests." I seriously agree. </p>

<p>Stupid collegeboard, they're finally getting what they deserve.</p>

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<p>"WOW suing over loss of 100 pts. What whiny babies."</p>

<p>If you weren't allowed to go to your highschool graduation because of the mistake you'd probably being suing too.</p>

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<p>"WOW suing over loss of 100 pts. What whiny babies."</p>

<p>If you weren't allowed to go to your highschool graduation because of the mistake you'd probably being suing too.</p>

<p>actually I'd rather not go to the graduation ceremony, it's boring and pointless. But I have to since my parents are making me</p>

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<p>"WOW suing over loss of 100 pts. What whiny babies."</p>

<p>Picture yourself being rejected from a University and wondering if the score change had anything to do with it. Senior year is stresfull enough as it is, now add to it incompetence from the #"$!"$#s who created that #$%"##%ing test......I would sue them......I thought about it ever since the news first came out....although luckily, I believe nothing happened to my test and got into my first choice.....still, I support the lawsuit. I hate them and I hate that test.</p>

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<p>Not going i.e. not graduating. Good luck finding a job.</p>

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<p>Oh, I meant not walking, the ceremony itself is pointless. You don't even get your diploma then, they mail it to you later.</p>

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<p>"WOW suing over loss of 100 pts. What whiny babies."</p>

<p>Picture yourself being rejected from a University and wondering if the score change had anything to do with it. Senior year is stresfull enough as it is, now add to it incompetence from the #"$!"$#s who created that #$%"##%ing test......I would sue them......I thought about it ever since the news first came out....although luckily, I believe nothing happened to my test and got into my first choice.....still, I support the lawsuit. I hate them and I hate that test.</p>

<p>oh shut up. 100 points is nothing. 100 points won't change whether you'll be accepted or not.</p>

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<p>College Board sucks. What do you expect from a not-for-profit monopoly? WHY make a not-for-profit monopoly?? Are you a madman or something? Some bloated wacko in an office building in New Jersey in a cheap business suit is probably snorting meth and laughing with his sick-minded board of shadowy cohorts as he smears his pudgy fingers over a map of the United States with red dots representing colleges or something.</p>

<p>
[quote]
oh shut up. 100 points is nothing. 100 points won't change whether you'll be accepted or not.

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</p>

<p>Oh, yeah. 200. 300. Same crap.</p>

<ol>
<li><ol>
<li>No difference.</li>
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<li><ol>
<li>Same thing</li>
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<li><ol>
<li>Same thing.</li>
</ol></li>
<li><ol>
<li>Same jazz.</li>
</ol></li>
<li><ol>
<li>No difference.</li>
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