The SATs used to only be offered 4-5 times a year. Now it is offered more, or the student can take the ACT, and there are even a few Sunday test dates. If they make more exceptions for distance from home or homeschoolers or sports, there are more chances to cheat.
If more than half the students are getting accommodations, then those without accommodations are the minority. They are the ‘fast takers’, the superstars. But they get no credit for that.
^ I agree; in this age of superscoring, not having to send all scores in, dubious accommodations (one of my kids needed one, and it was legit), kids probably deserve extra credit for “one and done.”
To me (as I mentioned above), it’s the combination of factors that should have set off alarm bells:
In short, standing alone, there are likely legitimate reasons for any one of these occurrences. It’s when you put all three together that the likelihood of legitimacy drops and the probability of fraud increases dramatically. No reason why ACT/SAT can’t identify potentially suspicious occurrences and employ technologies similar to those used by credit card companies to catch fraud. There are other things they could do as well, such as photographing each test taker when they enter the testing facility and even employing facial recognition technology. The testing companies have a vested interest in ensuring the integrity of their exams. They day colleges and universities come to the conclusion that ACT/SAT exams are rife with fraud is the day these cash cow exams become worthless. Even today, I sometimes wonder if schools don’t take the scores for exams given in foreign countries with a grain of salt.
Typically, I’m a big fan of your posts, epiphany, but can’t support this one. The feds have a lot more important crimes to be chasing than a few rich folks abusing a system setup by College Board.
But in reality, CB is a nonprofit which many Trustee seats are held by reps from the Colleges themselves. So, if CB is lax on some cheating, it really bcos the colleges are ok with the level of cheating that occurs. If the colleges wanted to tighten up the application process they could easily just vote/direct to CB to do so.
I agree with the @TheBigChef regarding the combination of factors perhaps being a reason to sound an alarm.
As for fall testing dates. Yes, there are multiple. And there are multiple events for competitive ECs during the fall. Again - why penalize the honest kids? Just demand documentation. In our case, it would be easy to forward a website with the competition dates on it - the same website also lists the names of the kids who are currently in first through fourth place. Divorced folks could send a copy of the visitation order, showing that Junior has to be in this other state every weekend (not all ex-spouses are willing to compromise on their visitation one weekend so a kid can take the SAT near their school). Etc. Etc. So no - don’t punish everyone because of the dishonest few. There is too much variation in personal circumstances and there are too many legitimate reasons to take an SAT away from the home school.
Why not make sure all the proctors are legit instead? If each and every proctor was screened and vetted thoroughly, that would certainly help.
As for the accommodations…who are these doctors giving their approval for accommodations to all these kids within the same school/district? Perhaps the answer with this is not getting rid of extra time, but examining the doctors who recommend extra time for a significant number of the kids who see them…?
The trick here, of course, is to not take any practice tests on the record. If your first official test is a big jump from a practice test, no one knows.
In these cases, facial recognition and other safeguards wouldn’t have worked as the proctor was in on the scam and the majority of times the real kid showed up to take the test.
When we had the first group parents-GC session, one of the first things she pointed out was not to see extra time as an advantage. She pointed out that it makes an unpleasant test even longer. A ‘glass half empty’ view of that. And even for kids who might truly need more time, it’s an exercise in exhaustion. The same kids who struggle to get work done in a time frame are just supposed to do it/struggle for longer? Does that make full sense?
I agree we don’t need a federal law about not cheating on college apps. You do attest to the accuracy of your app. There are other ways to validate. And in law, not all resolution is about hitting back with both barrels loaded. It depends.
You can’t proclaim colleges are ok with some level of cheating. The entire process is complex and many colleges are dealing with 10-20% more apps than admit spots. Many elements are considered and the bulk of kids applying to top holistics know too little about what that is. (By their own lack of sufficient exploration, not because no one hands it to them.)
By their own hands. Pro help or not. Wealthy is no guarantee.
Nor is it viable to think the vast number of hardworking GCs can just add policing apps to their work. Any solution needs to be feasible.
@roycroftmom My daughter played varsity field hockey in a very competitive league of 8-10 independent schools. The athletic departments for those schools did their very best not to schedule big games and tournaments on the standardized test dates, when the majority of seniors across the city would be retaking the SAT (usually the first date in September or October, right in the middle of the field hockey season). When that wasn’t possible, our coach moved up some JV players to varsity and they filled the vacant spots while Seniors on the team took the test. The testing was the priority.
@shanniebannie - that’s awesome. Wish every league/competitive circuit would do that.
Oh yes I can. All programs come with a certain amount of waste, fraud and abuse. College admissions is no different.
But more important than my pov, is some history of CB testing. They had score choice of Subject Tests many moons ago but dropped it bcos of cheating. (you can google how that worked back then.) But CB brought score choice back anyway, perhaps for money? Who knows the reason, but the colleges who run CB had to know with certainty that cheating would therefore increase with Score Choice. They (colleges + CB) decided it was worth it.
fwiw: increased cheating behind score choice is (likely) why many top colleges changed thier policies to require all scores. They came out with Require-All-Scores requirement as soon as CB went back to Score Choice. Coincidence? (Not likely.)
All this extra verification is going to cost a fortune. No one at the college board, or the college, really has time to check whether the all-star dance recital conflicts with the exam, and whether little Suzy is really at that competition, nor am I willing to pay for the college board to provide that service to others. There are a dozen test dates, plus test optional colleges. Those who want to make it work will do so. The degree of scamming is not minor. In my town, the extended time diagnosis costs $2500, and I have never known anyone denied it.
Alright, yes. You can say it.
But you don’t know it.
Yup, as will a bunch of extra security. Two picture ID’s? Writing sample? Background checks of teh proctors? And the like.
But the costs for extra checks on the proctors is a drop in the bucket compared to CB challenging MD diagnoses.
Who is willing to pay for all of this?
Yes, I do know it with certainty. Again, back to the Score Choice story, which is well documented.
Nah. I could cite my experience working for a college.
Score choice just means presenting your favored scores. Plenty of colleges eyeball scores for strengths from various test dates, even when you present every score set.
This is different than the issue of crazy score jumps.
Then go after the doctors who give everyone extended time. That issue is separate from the issue of those who need to test away from their home state. Make sure the proctors are on the up and up. If the doctors are legit and the proctors are legit, then that solves the problem. One can’t get extended time without a doctor’s permission, and one can’t cheat (in this instance) without a proctor’s assistance. The students can’t cheat if the adults overseeing them are on the up-and-up.
There’s nothing more for me to say and there’s nothing more for you to add without beating a dead horse, so I’ll leave it at that.
A really wonderful thing about British tertiary education is that there is much less sense of entitlement, which is at the root of this case. Not everyone expects there to be an exception made for their own child, so even Olympic athletes and Nobel Prize winners manage to rearrange their busy schedules to sit for the Oxbridge exams. So refreshing.
So only those in the top 1-4 places should get an exception? Only those with divorced parents,or even worse only those with divorced parents who are unreasonable? I don’t want CB to make those decisions. We had a girl on our athletic team who skipped a game to take a test. She was a good athlete and her mother wanted her to go to a top college. IMO, she went to a midlevel college and didn’t need to take the SAT on that day, as a sophomore but it wasn’t my decision. She took the test when it was offered and screwed our team for that game.
You have to decide what is more important, the athletic schedule or taking the SAT. College or no college. One of my kids was in theater and they had some big competition on the Dec testing date. Her teacher said don’t sign up for the competition if you are taking the SAT that day. Choose.
“@Hanna do the vacated grades let her apply as though she never attended college?”
No. A student who loses all their credits is a first-semester freshman again, but will still have to disclose the prior enrollment at the first school when applying to others. Kind of like if you matriculated somewhere but failed or withdrew from all your coursework. Even if you don’t have any credits to transfer, you have to explain your academic history. That said, if you are accepted at another school, they are likely to let you test out of prerequisites that you took but no longer have credit for. If you taught yourself linear algebra, then you know it, whether you have credit for it or not, and most universities are happy to place you into the right course that matches your background.
If your acceptance is revoked after you graduated, each and every credit you earned is canceled, not just the degree.
@twoinanddone No, I don’t think just the top 1-4 should get an exception. That wasn’t my point. I was throwing out ways to satisfy someone’s suspicion about someone taking a test away from home. You’re right - I don’t want CB making those kinds of decisions either. It’s best if things stay exactly as they are so kids who would like to take a test away from home for any reason (barring cheating) can. A teen should be able to take whatever test is offered anywhere they can reserve a seat, be it at their own home school or away, making decisions as best suits their yearly schedule, their family dynamics, and hopefully the schedule of their teammates when applicable. Choices need to be made, yes, but why place unnecessary restrictions on those choices? If someone wants to take the SAT on a certain date, and they have an EC commitment Friday night in another state, then they should be allowed to take the SAT the next morning in the area close to the EC event. If a kid has visitation with a dad every weekend in another state, then the kid can take the SAT at a school close to where the dad lives. Etc. (Factor in the SAT2 exams as well and the need for some flexibility in dates/testing centers increases. The listening version of the language SAT2 exams do not offer many testing dates, and some kids who don’t go to a traditional school have to send in SAT scores to otherwise “test optional” colleges…which means it isn’t just about one or two SAT tests, it’s a couple of attempts at the SAT plus multiple SAT2s. Etc.)
To not allow some kind of practical flexibility with testing centers based on this recent scam in which a minuscule amount of students (compared to the nationwide population) cheated by using fake proctors in a specific test center would be an overreaction. My point all along has been that sometimes individuals have reasons that are honest and practical, and not everyone who takes a test away from home is doing so to visit a site with fake proctors.
Wanted to clarify that since you tagged me. I shall now stop hitting deceased Nellie with a stick.
The point is, allowing testing anywhere greatly increases the risk of fraud. At the home school, the teachers know if the kid is indeed who he claims to be, and the school has a vested interest in proctoring correctly so that it remains a test site for its students. Not the case at some arbitrary test center.