<p>This… is just unbelievable.</p>
<p>A recent article in a Korean newspaper (translated into english in: <a href=“National : News : The Hankyoreh”>[Feature] SAT scandal leaves many questions unanswered : National : News : The Hankyoreh</a> ) states that a high school in South Korea was an official SAT test center until ETS closed it down in June 2006. </p>
<p>The supposed reasons for the closing of Hanyaong’s SAT center were:</p>
<li><p>copying and distributing SAT Math II C tests to students so they could “prepare” for their Math II C test (I think I heard there were 80 pages).</p></li>
<li><p>giving the students the questions to the SAT II chemistry test prior to the test day in June 2005. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>About #2, the school administrator “ms. Kim” says that some student got a hold of the chemistry test from somewhere else and then shared the questions with his friends. It’s obvious that she’s trying to cover up this whole incident, and what she is saying is a blatant lie because ETS wouldn’t close down their SAT center if it wasn’t the school administrator’s fault. they would have tracked down where the kid got the test, and punish the kid and the “place where he got the test”, not the school. Things like cheating on the SAT among students are frequent here too, but it’s the students who are punished for their lack of judgement, not the school.</p>
<p>Okay, when my brother told me this, I couldn’t believe this could actually happen. His girlfriend is Korean, and she says that things like this happen in Korea quite often, but we in the US never get to hear of it.</p>
<p>How can a school just get away with that… that’s all I kept asking.
It turns out that Collegeboard ships out the SAT tests to international SAT test centers (like Hanyoung and other test centers in Korea) way before the test date, and the school “takes care” of the test booklets. Supposedly, there’s no official from the ETS to watch the tests from being opened beforehand or to supervise the testings. After the test is over, the school packs the test booklets+answer sheets and ships them back here, to the US. And obviously, this particular school has done things with the tests that they shouldn’t be doing during the days (or even weeks) that the test is in their hands.</p>
<p>What angers me is how kids from this school in Korea are cheating their way into our best colleges. And I don’t think I am the only one who feels indignant about it. **All of us Americans should feel indignant. **We’re trying so hard to get into our own colleges, and they’re cheating their way in. And how ETS is trying to cover their careless supervision over test centers in other countries… that angers me.</p>
<p>It’s so obvious that there’s a huge amount of cheating in Korea. In his Harvard class, my brother knew a few Koreans who came from a Korean high school (don’t know if it was hanyuong, but some language highschool in Korea) and they had awesome stats like 1600 and 5’s on all APs etc, but they would fail their English course so badly it was a wonder they even got a 1600. and after their freshman year, my brother never saw them again. heard all of them went back to korea. he said they were extremely hardworking, but they definitely were not as good as their stats said they were.</p>
<p>I don’t care if people are smart and hardworking. If they cheat, they’re cheaters! and now a whole school cheating on the SATs? This is ridiculous. I hope students from this school get what they deserve… a reject letter from colleges and from our country.</p>