| College Board's duplicity in the Karen Dillard case borders on criminal. All it had to do was toss out the phrases "cheating" and "invalidate test scores" to the Dallas-area newspapers, and the story bolted onto the front pages (and even on the local TV stations). The reporters at both the Dallas and Fort Worth papers didn't bother to dig deeper.
The thing is, College Board used to sell Karen Dillard (and all the other college prep places around the country) the exact same material that she was accused of illegally acquiring. All of a sudden, "non-profit" College Board decided it was going to corner the market on $elling its $ample tests, and so it cut the supply line to the college prep places. Entirely within their legal rights, of course, but their motives were entirely financial.
I could easily gather about 100 families who would continue to give Karen Dillard the highest recommendation. The program works. Our daughter (who was a student a few years ago, not '08) got a 2350 on the SAT and attends college on a full-ride scholarship. But she spent a lot of time at Karen Dillard and worked hard for nearly two years to attain that.
That's the thing that people miss. Students still have to work hard and put in the time to achieve the kind of SAT results that places like Karen Dillard say are possible. |