Queue
03-10-2006, 11:04 PM
SAT grading gets low score from students
By Mary Beth Marklein, USATODAY
About 4,000 college-bound high school students not to mention parents, counselors and college admissions officials are struggling to recover from the news this week that their SAT scores were miscalculated.
"I don't understand how this could have happened," says Katie MacDowell, 17, a senior at Littleton (Mass.) High School. She learned Thursday that the score reported to colleges for her test was 40 points lower than it should have been.
The College Board, a non-profit association that owns the SAT, this week alerted 1,168 colleges and 4,000 test takers and their high schools that some scores for the SAT reasoning test administered in October were incorrect. That's 0.8% of all test takers at that sitting.
The College Board said it would refund registration and related fees to the affected students. It added that it reported only cases in which the corrected scores were higher than originally reported.
In most cases, the score difference was less than 100 points and occurred across all three sections of the test.
Iowa City-based Pearson Educational Measurement, which scanned the answer sheets in Austin, said in a statement that the main problems were that some sheets contained "abnormally high moisture content" and that some answer ovals were marked in a way that was not readable.
College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti says the problem came to officials' attention after a couple of students questioned their scores in December.
When errors in those tests were discovered, the company investigated further. Earlier this week, it began alerting colleges; students were notified Wednesday and Thursday.
The announcement comes as colleges are finishing the process of considering applications for next fall. "The timing was lousy," says Joyce Smith, executive director of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
While some criticized the College Board for waiting too long, Smith says she found it "commendable" that the association looked into the problem thoroughly.
Katie says her next move is to contact the colleges to which she applied to make sure they are aware of her higher scores.
A number of college admissions officials told USA TODAY that they would reconsider files of affected students, or had already done so.
At Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., admissions dean Monica Inzer says the higher scores for 30 students identified by the College Board did not change any admissions decisions, but she noted that financial aid could be affected.
"I've lost two days on this ... (but) this is much bigger than the problem it's causing me," Inzer says. "Kids make decisions based on their scores. They may not have applied to places because their scores were (low)."
Other schools downplayed the impact.
"It's more of a nuisance at a time when we're trying to wend our way through 20,000-plus applications," says Lee Stetson, admissions dean at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The school received incorrect scores for 103 students, but Stetson says the changes generally have been so small that no students have been affected.
Even in the case of one student who had been denied in the school's early admission cycle, a 50-point boost didn't tip the scales, Stetson says.
By Mary Beth Marklein, USATODAY
About 4,000 college-bound high school students not to mention parents, counselors and college admissions officials are struggling to recover from the news this week that their SAT scores were miscalculated.
"I don't understand how this could have happened," says Katie MacDowell, 17, a senior at Littleton (Mass.) High School. She learned Thursday that the score reported to colleges for her test was 40 points lower than it should have been.
The College Board, a non-profit association that owns the SAT, this week alerted 1,168 colleges and 4,000 test takers and their high schools that some scores for the SAT reasoning test administered in October were incorrect. That's 0.8% of all test takers at that sitting.
The College Board said it would refund registration and related fees to the affected students. It added that it reported only cases in which the corrected scores were higher than originally reported.
In most cases, the score difference was less than 100 points and occurred across all three sections of the test.
Iowa City-based Pearson Educational Measurement, which scanned the answer sheets in Austin, said in a statement that the main problems were that some sheets contained "abnormally high moisture content" and that some answer ovals were marked in a way that was not readable.
College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti says the problem came to officials' attention after a couple of students questioned their scores in December.
When errors in those tests were discovered, the company investigated further. Earlier this week, it began alerting colleges; students were notified Wednesday and Thursday.
The announcement comes as colleges are finishing the process of considering applications for next fall. "The timing was lousy," says Joyce Smith, executive director of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
While some criticized the College Board for waiting too long, Smith says she found it "commendable" that the association looked into the problem thoroughly.
Katie says her next move is to contact the colleges to which she applied to make sure they are aware of her higher scores.
A number of college admissions officials told USA TODAY that they would reconsider files of affected students, or had already done so.
At Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., admissions dean Monica Inzer says the higher scores for 30 students identified by the College Board did not change any admissions decisions, but she noted that financial aid could be affected.
"I've lost two days on this ... (but) this is much bigger than the problem it's causing me," Inzer says. "Kids make decisions based on their scores. They may not have applied to places because their scores were (low)."
Other schools downplayed the impact.
"It's more of a nuisance at a time when we're trying to wend our way through 20,000-plus applications," says Lee Stetson, admissions dean at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The school received incorrect scores for 103 students, but Stetson says the changes generally have been so small that no students have been affected.
Even in the case of one student who had been denied in the school's early admission cycle, a 50-point boost didn't tip the scales, Stetson says.