<p>March 8, 2006
Technical Problems Cause Errors in SAT Test Scores
By KAREN W. ARENSON
About 4,000 students who took the SAT last October received test scores that were lower than they should have been some by as much as 100 points because of technical problems in the scoring process, the College Board said yesterday.</p>
<p>The College Board, which administers the SAT, said it had begun to notify college admissions offices, high school counselors and affected students this week in letters and in e-mail messages, and expected to complete the process by Thursday. It also said that it planned to return registration fees and charges for sending test scores to colleges to the students whose scores were in error. </p>
<p>The disclosure came at the height of the college admissions season, at a time when many colleges have already made many of their decisions about which students to accept, reject or defer.</p>
<p>"We ask that you do everything you can to ensure that students are in no way penalized for a matter that was beyond their control," Jim Montoya, a vice president of the College Board, wrote in a letter to deans and admissions directors dated March 6. </p>
<p>One college brought the error to the attention of The New York Times, and the College Board subsequently confirmed it. </p>
<p>Although SAT scores are intended to show only one aspect of a student's qualifications for admissions, Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a group that opposes much of standardized testing, said the problem "could have undermined students' chances of admission, and changed where they applied to college." </p>
<p>"It appears to be one of the biggest test score errors in terms of the number of students who were affected," Mr. Schaeffer added. "Why did it take so long to notify colleges and test takers?" </p>
<p>Chiara Coletti, vice president for public affairs at the College Board, said last night that the board first learned that it might have a problem in late December when two students questioned the scores they had received. She said it had taken time to investigate the extent of the problem.</p>
<p>Ms. Coletti said that as the organization reviewed the tests, it realized the errors were not limited to a few students but were "a systemic problem." She said the College Board has had "things like this before, but not of this magnitude."</p>
<p>Ms. Coletti said the problem grew out of the scanning of answer sheets in Texas so that the sheets could be graded by computer. "We spent weeks investigating it," she said, adding that the College Board had then rescanned and rescored every exam from October, in a "time-consuming" procedure.</p>
<p>She said the College Board had some leads about why the problems had developed, but no answers yet, except to say there had been a "complex confluence of events."</p>
<p>She said the number of students affected was relatively limited: eight-tenths of 1 percent of the 495,000 students who took the SAT reasoning test in October. </p>
<p>Most of the students had received lower scores because of the processing problems, Ms. Coletti said, although some may have received higher scores. She said that while some scores were off by as much as 80 or 100 points, most were off by less. </p>
<p>The main SAT test comprises three sections whose scores each range from 200 to 800. </p>
<p>Ms. Coletti said the College Board's policy was to report only the scores that were too low and not to make any changes to those that were too high.</p>
<p>She said there had been other scanning problems, including one with a separately administered chemistry test in the last six months, but that the errors had affected far fewer people. </p>
<p>Some college admissions officials said yesterday that the errors would force them to review the admissions and financial aid decisions for all of the affected students.</p>
<p>Jacquelyn L. Nealon, dean of admissions and financial aid at the New York Institute of Technology, said she and her colleagues had been stunned to learn about the problem when they opened a letter that arrived in their late afternoon mail yesterday.</p>
<p>"It looks like a generic 'Dear colleague' letter," she said, describing the four-paragraph letter she had received from the College Board. "Once you realize what the letter is telling you, you are flabbergasted." </p>
<p>She said that about 50 of the college's 2,000 applicants were affected. </p>
<p>"Our staff will stay tonight to pull the files, and we will re-examine them tomorrow," she said. "Our goal is to get through these within the next 24 hours. We are going to go back and re-evaluate all of the students for admissions and scholarships." </p>
<p>The college, which has 11,000 students, has campuses in Manhattan and on Long Island and sites outside the United States.</p>
<p>Martha F. Pitts, an admissions official at the University of Oregon, which has already sent out some of its acceptances, said she learned of the problem late yesterday in an e-mail message from the College Board. She said it appeared that about five applicants were affected and that the errors were "fairly small." But she said she still planned to review their applications.</p>
<p>Other college officials said yesterday evening that they had not heard of the problem.</p>