<p>deleting duplicate post, sorry.</p>
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<p>Some students do over or under achieve on SAT and other standardized tests relative to high school and college performance (where doing assignments and projects with less time pressure, or in-depth reading, research, and analysis, involves different skills compared to multiple choice time tests).</p>
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<p>One wonders if that’s accurate, or a smokescreen to protect the fact that there was an informant.</p>
<p>I agree with the implication that most schools wouldn’t detect such variations. Someone probably turned them in. The schools usually can hardly get the transcript correct, let alone find a dozen or so abberational scores.</p>
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<p>Actually, there may be privacy and more serious historical issues with the use of digital or any pictures of students if this is made mandatory and college admissions officers can access them. </p>
<p>The once common mandated inclusion of an applicant’s photograph in college applications was used at Ivy and other peer elite colleges to screen out “undesirable applicants” on the basis of pseudo-science known as physiogamy. </p>
<p>A pseudo-science once commonly used by various European/American racist/anti-semitic groups to justify WASP racial superiority and the denigration/discrimination of everyone else in the early-mid 20th century. That is, until it was completely discredited by the scientific community, its association with the Nazis, and the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. </p>
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<p>Depends on the academic quality/rigor of a given high school’s curriculum. One non-cheating possibility for kids having high SAT scores and low high school GPAs is that their high school’s curriculum has a much higher workload and is much more rigorous than a random high school that is academically average/below average in terms of rigor/workload. </p>
<p>That was the common pattern with dozens of kids at my and other NYC specialized high schools as well as several friends/colleagues at comparable public magnet/private/boarding schools. In those environments…low GPA/high SATs were common enough that few would consider it a red flag of anything heinous like cheating without much more strong evidence.</p>
<p>I agree with this solution. 17-19 year old kids shouldn’t have this minor issue ruin their lives. Sure they committed fraud, but they should also have a penalty commiserate with their crime.
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<p>BTW, an explanation that a student may have a low SAT score, but a high gpa is b/c she/he is a bad test taker or (more likely) a teacher-pleaser.</p>
<p>poetgirl, don’t you realize that if these kids could hand over up to $3500 to someone to take the SAT test for them, that they wouldn’t also get so hot-shot lawyer to get rid of those charges?!
This happened in Great Neck afterall.</p>
<p>One solution to the cheating by proxy would be to add a very short written exercise to the PSAT. This sample could be compared to the SAT essay though randomized verification. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I still believe that the SAT should flip positions with the AP and be offered only twice a year over three days. The school should provide graded samples of HS writing. Overseas tests should be restructured entirely by borrowing the GRE technology.</p>
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<p>IMHO, that’s not necessarily a more understandable explanation than the possibility the student’s high school had serious grade inflation problems/academics lacked adequate rigor. </p>
<p>The former may be taken by some admissions officers as further confirmation a given student may lack the sufficient level of intelligence they expect from their admitted pool of students.*</p>
<p>The latter may be also be interpreted negatively. Two examples I have overheard/read are:</p>
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<li><p>Student is a “teacher-pleaser” to make up for his/her academic/standardized score deficiencies.</p></li>
<li><p>This characteristic could be a manifestation of a negative personality type commonly known as a “brownnoser” or if one takes an extremely unsympathetic view…an uncritical worshiper of authority. </p></li>
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<li>Personally, I’m on the fence on this issue. While I do not necessarily believe SAT/ACT scores are great indicators of intelligence, I also feel such tests provide a needed “common bar” to measure all college applicants who come from high schools with academic standards/rigor as varied as the US K-12 education system.</li>
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<p>I haven’t read the whole thread but but me the underlying factor is the fact that these kids (and I’m sure many others across the country) felt that getting the “right” test scores mattered all that much that it was worth cheating for. To me it all goes back to the ridiculous college application process. How about we eliminate all standardized tests like SAT, ACT, SAT II, etc? Studies are all over the place as to whether they are indicative of college “success.” Those schools with SAT optional policies seem to produce very competent kids. This country is test crazy which means, IMHO, that kids learn for the test which in life is much less useful.</p>
<p>Husband is calling first phase of turkey prep is done, time for my first morning cleanup phase!</p>
<p>I think they also provide the “common bar” across the spectrum of high schools and students. But I think there should be a limit to how many times the kids can take them but that will never happen because there is no incentive for the companies that administer them to limit their revenue stream. The colleges don’t care because it boosts their statistics. The only reason this is in the court system is because the testing companies and the colleges are spineless and no one wants to “own” the process. Just like many things in life “we” as a society have abdicated responsibility to the court system. If the testing companies would report cheating and the colleges would reject applications of cheaters there would be no need for the court system and there would be “teeth” behind the integrity issue and a large deterrent to kids not to cheat but when businesses, like testing companies and colleges look the other way they are tacitly saying “it’s OK.” It’s disgusting. I don’t feel sorry for these kids but I feel sorry for a country that seems to increasingly hide behind the legal system for these types of moral and integrity issues that can easily be handled by a process.</p>
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<p>Actually, personal photographs are not considered “biometrics” unless you are using a technology to compare the characteristics in the picture (facial proportions, etc.) to some kind of database. I am just suggesting that humans have the chance to identify other humans the same way they do today through driver’s licenses and other picture IDs. I do not believe the cost would be prohibitive with today’s technology and an efficient app. It certainly need not add a lot to the cost of the check-in process.</p>
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<p>True. So maybe it would have to be a post-admission verification ability or a high school verification process. I’m sure something could be worked out to ensure fairness.</p>
<p>After all, we use and require photo ID for a myriad of transactions (more-so in Europe). With current technology it is a relatively easy fix that the CB should put in place.</p>
<p>Kind of similar to the child rape case at Penn State - people don’t think they are doing wrong.</p>
<p>I would say at least 25% of the foreign graduate students who attend the college I teach at have cheated or had someone else take their TOEFL for them. Some have even been caught having someone else do a phone interview. I have people who don’t understand basic English “wait, I want to ask you a question” and they smile at you and sit down and start working on something else.</p>
<p>The problem here is that ETS is too much of a monopoly, and it is not regulated appropriately. If you consider them private, and the use of test scores by colleges voluntary, then the government should stay out of it, right?</p>
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<p>This would be me as well. But now that I have the vantage point of two systems- Canada and US I think you either need testing or you need common educational standards. </p>
<p>Canada doesn’t use any kind of test scores for college admissions (for Canadian educated kids but they do require it for US kids). The lack of test scores certainly doesn’t seem to hurt anyone- kids go to university in large numbers, come out with degrees, are qualified to take various occupations and professions or go to graduate school (including to the US). </p>
<p>But possibly it works here more easily because there is not the degree of quality variation in education like you see in the US. Schools do not vary so widely in quality because they are comparably funded (not by property tax by the provincial govt). There is a common curriculum by province (eg. private schools in wealthy neighborhoods and publics in the inner city will use the same textbooks and cover the same curriculum material for each course). There is a vastly smaller group of kids coming from historically disadvantaged groups that still struggle education-wise. And students largely take the same courses so there isn’t the same kind of differential tracks you see in the US (e.g. the regular curriculum works fine for the college bound so the popularity of AP courses is extremely low compared to the US). And finally, the variation in university quality and the variation of abilities of students across universities is trivial compared to the variation you see in US higher education.</p>
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<p>Huh? Let’s take them one at a time.</p>
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<p>What about the ACT? Regardless of your definition of monopoly, college testing exists because highly selective colleges want it to exist. Even some non-so-selective colleges, such as the Cal States, require testing.</p>
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<p>In what way should they be regulated? Would you prefer that the government take over the testing? </p>
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<p>They ARE private corporation(s).</p>
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<p>Correct.</p>
<p>So, back to preventing cheating? Suggestions?</p>
<p>Deterrent and consequences that are meaningful to the kids and inappropriately ambitious parents. Legal fraud charges covers it if the testing companies and colleges don’t have the drive to fix THEIR problem.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure if even that’s enough if all those charges amount to are a series of fines…even steep ones. For those who were willing to pay $3k+ for others to take the SATs for them, those fines may be viewed as “cost of doing business”. </p>
<p>Though harsh to some, I think a better deterrent is fines and a policy that those students are barred from applying/attending any form of higher education for at least 5 years. Maybe an enforced stint working/volunteering* in the “real world” will give them time to reflect on what they’ve done. </p>
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<li>Actually volunteering to actually serve the less fortunate in society with their supervisor signing off to verify their compliance after each 8+ hour shift…not an effective club-med type vacation disguised as a “volunteering opportunity” paid for by upper/upper-middle class parents.</li>
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<p>Do you feel the same way about an underage person who commits ‘fraud’ by using a fake ID to obtain entrance to a bar/nightclub? </p>
<p>(The “crime” is essentially the same – using false ID and misrepresenting self. And as someone noted upthread, using a false ID is punishable by 4 years…)</p>
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<p>Yes, “we” adults do, but the masses still reject using an ID to vote. :)</p>
<p>The fact is that MOST high schoolers do not have ID’s, at least those that are state-issued (and hopefully, less prone to counterfeit)… And, undocumenteds can’t obtain any credible ID.</p>
<p>My point is that to control cheating, CB would end up restricting access someway, somehow. Is there another way?</p>
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<p>I recognize the “legalistic” nature of the argument you are making, but the fact that this is even considered to be a valid line of inquiry simply represents why we have become such an ethically challenged society.</p>
<p>there’s no ethical amiguity here, even if there is a legal ambiguity, but this seems, lately, to be the theme of our culture, and not in very good way, imho</p>
<p>I wonder if this is the natural outcome of having far too many needless laws on the books, to the point where everyone wonders at the validity of any law at all.</p>
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<p>No because the motivations behind faking the ID do matter…and using one to effectively cheat one’s way into an institute of higher education ranks is far more serious in my book than using one to sneak into a bar/nightclub. </p>
<p>Moreover, it isn’t necessarily the same thing as “being underage” in the context of bars/nightclubs includes ostensible young adults between 18-20. Young adults who are considered old enough to vote for our political leaders, enter into legal contracts, fight for our country, etc. In short…the 21+ drinking laws effectively creates second-class citizens…so it is an apples & oranges comparison.</p>
<p>A 14+ drinking law would “create” second-class citizens. Actually, it doesn’t “create” anything - it simply recognizes difference. And, by the way, the law in many states creates either categories of so-called “second-class” citizens - those who are considered unlikely to be able to carry out certain tasks safely. Blind people can’t drive. Mentally impaired people can’t vote. In Florida, if you are 90 and try to change your will, you are likely to be required to prove (with two notarized physician notes) that you are not suffering from dementia. But blind people can enter into legal contracts. Mentally impaired people may be able to drive. 90-year-olds may vote.</p>