<p><a href="CBS%20News">quote</a> For Sam Eshaghoff, getting a high score on the SAT college admissions exam was more than a point of pride. It was a lucrative business. As Alison Stewart reports, other students paid Eshaghoff up to $2,500 each to take their tests using easily manufactured fake IDs. His scam came crashing down in fall 2011, when he was arrested for criminal impersonation and fraud. Eshaghoff has since accepted a plea deal, but the case still raises major questions about the integrity of the test itself.
<p>that’s the funniest thing about it. I know kids who went from 1500s to 2100s busting their balls. You might as well do that and get a legit score and a little smarter than risk the rest of your life for a not perfect score.</p>
<p>The sad thing is, he’s back in college, continuing with his life. He had to tutor and do some other service type stuff as part of the plea deal. The College Board will not tell colleges the names of the kids who cheated either, so they stay in college…not sure most considering this move will really see much of a down side to the idea.</p>
<p>It’s a shame. I know a lot of kids who have cheated on their ACT and just go on living as if that was the score that they earned. Why should they get to cheat, while the others take the test honestly?</p>
I don’t know if he could have gotten them perfect scores, but it’s better that he didn’t. They said they figured what was going on because some kids had scores much higher than their grades would suggest they’d get. So if he’d gotten perfect scores, the whole operation probably would have been caught after just 2 or 3 kids. Don’t know if he figured that out and ran with it or if it’s just a coincidence that the scores were 2100s.</p>
<p>The real sad story here is that tons of kids with a lot of potential get held back in life because of a score on a horrid standardized test… In a way, this kid was doing a great thing.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t think any spots were taken away. This is not to say I approve of what happened, but I’m just playing devil’s advocate. The schools these kids were applying to (or the ones that have been released so far) were schools like UMich, Indiana, I believe Syracuse, etc. Schools that have pretty high acceptance rates and relatively low-ish yields. They aren’t the type of school to “take one kid over another,” because they can afford to take them both, due to their acceptance rates and yields. So it isn’t likely that because one of these kids got in, another kid wasn’t accepted.</p>
<p>Ah, really? I’m easily above 99%-tile on my ACT, but my GPA is barely above 50% of my graduating class. Never thought about how colleges would look at that.</p>
<p>^
High SAT/ACT but low GPA tends to look lazy.</p>
<p>And @born2dance, UMich’s acceptance rate is on its way down. It’s becoming considerably more selective.</p>
<p>It’s ridiculous that ETS policy is to refuse to notify the schools. I don’t understand how that policy is consistent with any test that has any integrity whatsoever.</p>
<p>The security flaws aren’t the only things wrong with the SAT - the racial disparity is sickening. And students paying people to take the test for them probably widens SES gaps.</p>
<p>@RedSeven I know, but UMich still doesn’t seem to take one kid “in place of” another. Especially here on LI. The schools here get a lot of kids in, so it doesn’t seem like one kid getting in means they don’t take another. The UMich acceptance rate out here is really high. (But you’re right, it is overall getting more and more selective)</p>
<p>I saw this on 60 mins. Really disappointing, I have worked so hard for a 29 on my ACT while these people with money just hire this guy. I only hope colleges will see my good GPA and understand that I don’t test well. </p>
<p>I agree with some earlier posts-high test scores with a low GPA isn’t great.</p>
<p>I agree with the statement on page one that said many ambitious students are held back in life because of bad standardized test scores, but what about the students who aren’t capable or ambitious that cheat? Aren’t they also taking opportunity away from certain kids?</p>
<p>Just came across this on Salon.com. Some kind of scary statistics – HALF of all Chinese applicants to US colleges falsify their transcripts? 90 percent of letters of recommendations are fake? The comments are kind of interesting too, people arguing that the people who really lose are those who play by the rules, while others argue that that just makes you a sucker:</p>
<p>There are still a limited number of spots. While it’s true that UMich accepts a large number of applicants from certain schools (typically at least 75% of my high school’s graduating class is accepted), that doesn’t mean that at other schools it accepts a similar proportion of applicants. There are plenty of schools where it only takes a handful of students. Plus, by virtue of the number of spots UMich has compared to the number of applications from qualified students it receives, it has to take one student over another. It can’t take everyone who’s qualified.</p>
<p>I fail to see how this is any more acceptable given that these students are applying to universities less selective than the most selective schools out there. If you wouldn’t condone it for someone applying to Harvard, you can’t condone it anywhere else. Cheating is cheating, and as long as a school doesn’t have a 100% acceptance rate, it’s going to make an impact.</p>
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<p>Definitely, especially since people who cheat by hiring someone to take the test for them are probably skewed towards higher SES groups, which widens the opportunity gap.</p>