Descartesz

--Photo required to register, appears on ticket.
--Photo checks upon arrival, return from breaks, and at test submission.
--Photo verification by school when scores are sent.
--Standby registration no longer permitted.
--To be adopted by both SAT and ACT this September.

SAT, ACT institute tough new measures to prevent cheating

tokenadult

AP report on the same news, with some other details (no increase in the price of the test):

Tighter security imposed for SAT and ACT after cheating scandal; students must submit photos | StarTribune.com

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vlines

this could be interesting for all of those students that like to change their hair/ identity/ look every other week. My neighbor's daughter has had long pink hair, and short spikey black hair all in the past 4 months. I expecting dreads for the summer.

I am glad they are doing it, but sad it comes to this.

StarryEyes101

I'm fine with all these procedures except "--Photo verification by school when scores are sent".

I'm assuming this means that when Score Reports are sent, it shall have our photograph attached to them? If so, I don't necessarily want potential Colleges to see my photo in such a way, particularly when it isn't even requested as part of our applications etc.

StarryEyes101

"The photo will also be attached to the student's scores, which, for the first time, will be sent to his or her high school, so that administrators and guidance counselors can see the pictures. Previously, test results were sent only to the student".

Also, how does this work for home-schooled students and/or students not currently in high school?

TheFallenOne

I still hear rumors of people taking the test for each other. That is, they enter the test room but fill in their friends' information (name, address, etc.). Do these new rules address this issue?

vlines

thefallenone, cheaters are gonna cheat.

myuusmeow

@StarryEyes

Were they really only sent to the student? When I took my SAT for the first time last November, my gc gushed that I "did better than all the others in [my] grade" (therefore she sees everyone's scores) I was just surprised that she received them too.

Descartesz

Neither article mentioned this. Only photos on the reports sent to high schools were mentioned.

I believe that score reports have always been sent to high schools and that the article is in error about this. It could be that the option to keep your scores from your high school has been available and now will not be. I am not sure about this.

Home schooling might be a loophole. However one would assume that if a college receives a transcript from a high school and a score report that stipulated "home schooled" then they would suspect something was up.

I suppose this would be more difficult to do with a photo now confirming who is turning in the exam, but not impossible. Consider this scenario:

--A and B enter the exam room under their verified identities.
--At some point, A and B switch exams. A takes B's and B takes A's.
--Upon completion, exams are switched back. A turns in A's and is photo-verified. B the same.

This scheme would require examinees to be assigned to the same room (which might not happen) and that the switching not be noticed by the proctors.

There is an assumption that high school counselors and aids will be able to identify all individual student testers from their photos. I'd say this is dubious for public high schools where counselors are assigned 700 students and see only, say, 25% of them in a given year.

StarryEyes101

@myuusmeow

I think you've misunderstood my post. I'm fine with my GC receiving my scores alongside my photograph (he/she knows me and thus it isn't a problem), but I don't want all of the potential colleges that I wish to apply to and to whom I thus send my score reports, to also then see my photograph; which is what has been decided with these new measures.

I don't see why colleges need to see how I look like, when they themselves do not request photographs in their applications etc.

SaintSaens

Now with the removal of standby testing, students will really have to make sure they keep up with registration deadlines.

StarryEyes101

@Descartesz

I read the NYT article about this story, and it said the following;

"The photograph that students will be required to upload will be printed on their admission ticket and the roster at the test center. The statement said the uploaded photos would be retained in a database that high school and college admissions officials can look at".

Link - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/ed...-security.html

Descartesz

Interesting, and thanks for that. I suspect this will generate some policy debates in admissions offices about whether or not photos should be accessed. This could, for example, defeat the wishes of applicants who opt out of providing their census ethnic-group information. Or it might reveal a physical impairment of some sort, irrelevant to the application process, that they wished to remain private.

I suggest a reasonable policy would be to access the photo only if there is a genuine need to authenticate identity, otherwise proscribe access.

I hope there is a proviso for disadvantaged families that would have a difficult time providing a recent (electronically digitized?) photograph.

Lanayru

Would they require color prints of the admissions ticket just for the photo? Procrastinators, 12/21/12 is tiptoeing nearer :P

Descartesz

I find the cooperation between the ETS and ACT interesting. This could hardly be done unilaterally -- the inconvenience might drive students to the other test and the other test probably would not want to become the easier target for fraud.