Many unfortunate students who took the SAT exam in October have received incorrect scores. The College Board, a New York-based non-profit organization that owns the SAT exam, supposedly notified the students by e-mail and phone about the circumstances two weeks ago.
The College Board also said they were reimbursing students $41.50, the exam's cost, and any other associated charges. But how this slip-up could have been made still isn't clear.
An article from Sacramento's The State Hornet states that the results were affected and therefore incorrect because of moisture. Supposedly, humidity that was brought on by rain caused the tests to dampen and swell, ultimately leading to the wrong scoring.
A total of 4,411 students received scores lower than they deserved. To make it worse, only recently did the College Board admit that 27,000 out of 495,000 tests weren't completely rescanned. As of now, all answer sheets have been checked.
This dilemma has caused nothing but distress. The tests had to be rescored, colleges across the country had to be notified and updated with the correct scores, and students had to pay the consequences, at least for the time being.
And what about the students who might not have applied to certain colleges because of their incorrect scores? Now it is too late because it's past most university admissions deadlines.
Also, colleges might have rejected some students. At least now all universities are well aware of the circumstances and are reconsidering applications.
Twenty-four incoming ASU freshmen received incorrect SAT scores but, luckily, none of them were kept from getting into ASU, and they were re-evaluated for aid.
I'm sure upcoming students in need of taking the SAT are worried that their scores could be miscalculated, too. Any trust that schools and students had in the accuracy of the College Board is most likely diminishing.
Eckerd College in Florida is planning on making test scores optional criteria for incoming students in 2007. According to a recent USA Today article, Earlham College in Indiana will be reconsidering its involvement with the College Board.
From now on, the College Board says that they, along with Pearson Educational Management, the firm that scores the exams, will be scanning the answer sheets twice. They seem deeply apologetic, embarrassed and certainly want to regain trust.
Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, a group that contests exorbitant standardized testing, said in an Associated Press article, "There's clearly something wrong with the management at the College Board and Pearson."
Nationally, less than 1 percent of students were affected.
Brian O'Reilly, SAT Information Services executive director, said, "The likelihood that the incorrect scores had an impact on admissions into colleges is low." This may be because colleges also look at GPAs and the student as a whole when considering them.
Now I know we all make mistakes, but why were students and colleges told about this problem so late?
As if the college application process wasn't hectic and nerve-racking enough, these unfortunate students had more to deal with than they should have. Will miscalculations arise in the future? There is a common phrase: Never say never.
Victoria is a journalism junior. Reach her at victoria.ragogna@asu.edu.
