College Board Receives an F in Scoring
Kathleen Bulson
Issue date: 4/12/06 Section: News
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The SAT causes anxiety in juniors and seniors each year, as the test is often a key factor in college admission and scholarship decisions. October 2005's test was no different in anxiety levels, but students faced one more difficulty: incorrect scores.
The College Board, which owns the rights to the SAT, does not grade the test itself. Instead, the test is sent to various grading facilities owned by Pearson Company. The largest facility is located in Austin, Texas.
Of the 495,000 students who took the October version of the test, 4,411 students received the wrong scores when the scores arrived several months later. Most reported scores were significantly lower than actual scores. In some cases, as much 140 points separated a student's announced and actual scores. Six hundred students had reported scores with higher grades than what they should have received.
Pearson Company attributes the errors to excessive moisture in the air, which caused answer sheets to expand and interfere with scoring machines. Machines also had difficulty reading lightly bubbled answers.
The College Board discovered these errors during a requested recheck of a test, a March 10 New York Times article says.
Chiara Coletti, the College Board's vice president for public affairs, said, ''Pearson says they now understand the technical issues fully, and we know they can control for those issues now. We are confident of that because our operations people have been talking to their operations people steadily."
Manhattan College was alerted of the errors via phone call shortly after the discovery was made. The Vice President for Enrollment Management, Mr. William J. Bisset Jr., said that "53 of the students who sent scores in October were erroneously calculated."
Forty-four of these students had also submitted applications this year. Mr. Bisset explained that out of these forty-four, some were accepted, while others were denied and others waitlisted. He personally checked the files of the rejected and waitlisted applicants to see if the new SAT scores would change the college's decision.