<p>I was looking at one of the websites for a prestigious prep school to see what their college counseling department offered, and I was startled to find that there was a listing for the various classrooms students should go to on the date of the SAT, if they were taking the SAT under extended time. The school is impossible to get into, so I could not imagine how so many students qualified for additional time. So I did some research and came across a news report prepared by ABC on this issue. It appears that parents of very wealthy children are shopping around and paying huge amounts of money to psychologists and educational consultants who are willing to tell them that their child has learning disability so that they may get extra time on the SAT. While the percentage of those needed extra time is typically at 2%, ever since the collegeboard stopped flagging who was taking the SAT under extended time conditions, the number has risen to 15%. That means that of the 1.5 million students who take the SAT each year, about 200,000 are taking them under extended time conditions. Many of these students are in fact those in honors and AP courses who are at the top of their class, and giving them extended time is absurd and unfair. Because of a privacy issue, collegeboard is not permitted to report to colleges who has taken the exams under those conditions. One student in the report from an elite prep school said that one of her classmates who is a good student in all honors courses although no brain in math was able to receive an 800 on the math section of the SAT because she had an extra two hours to take the exam.
While there is a procedure of diagnostic tests and examinations to get extended time, parents often shop around until they find the one person who will make the diagnosis. Many private prep schools across the country either encourage the diagnosis or do not discourage it. Afterall, higher SAT scores leads to a higher number of ivy league admissions and happier parents.
This is not a fair playing field.
As colleges admissions becomes more competitive with more students applying to top tier colleges than ever before, and with the SAT having greater importance (due to colleges having difficulty evaluation the value of a students academic record since grading is different at each school, and the importance of the U.S. News Report which values selectivity), wealthy parents are striving to give their children the edge. It is bad enough that some parents are paying high priced consultants to make their extremely bright but ordinary children stand out by repackaging them to make them appear to have interests and passions that are not authentic, but it is appalling that many are paying to give their children an SAT score edge.</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>Its sad but true. But then you’ve got to remember that the SATs are not the end of the world.</p>
<p>Do you have links to any of these reports?</p>
<p>Go to google and type in ABC news rich kids SAT
You will come immediately to the link for a report by ABC News called
ABC News Does loophole give rich kids the SAT edge?</p>
<p>oh my god. geeze. oh crap. fsho!</p>
<p>:mad: IT’S NOT FAIR! :mad:</p>
<p>Yep, it isn’t fair. I’m sure we could all score a perfect 800 in all the sections if we had an extra two hours.</p>
<p>2400 isn’t all that likely with 2 more hours. I think unless you’re scoring around 2300, there are a lot of people that would stick with incorrect answers (particularly writing and CR). This is also assuming we could write stellar essays on time alone (though many probably could). Math, a lot of people could probably get perfects, but writing and CR passages/vocab . . .</p>
<p>Extra time is unfair. I mean, if you legitimately deserve it, I have no problem, but the wealthy? Man, they already have money, why lord even more superiority? It sucks for those of us that have to work for our scores.</p>
<p>WMF1125… haha, yea i kno, us kids on CC here are FRIGGIN *<em>**ED wen we get something like… 2350, i mean, </em> IS THAT… (lol), we’d all ace it with 2 EXTRA HOURS to recheck all our math and reread those boring ass stories</p>
<p>When you guys are all done university, have successful careers, and have a family of your own, you’d probably do the same thing for your kids.</p>
<p>I know I would. But yeah, since I’m currently on the other end of the spectrum I think its completely unfair.</p>
<p>LoL I know a kid who was diagnosed with some mental disability which caused him to have slow reasoning and problem solving skills, end of the story he gets extended time on any test he takes, which is why he decided to take about 12 ap test this year and kept on taking the SAT until he got the score he wanted.</p>
<p>was his disability real, no, he went to the school psychologist and just acted really slow and stupid and she gave him the paper. Everyone at our schools knows about it and no one really cares,lets be honest guys you have to give credit where credit is due the kid thought of a brillant way to beat the system, and although I’M jealous I would’ve done it also.</p>
<p>the schools will know if you get extended time. if u get it, no percentile is reported on your score thingy.</p>
<p>Eh? So stealing money from a bank in a really brilliant way is moral too now?</p>
<p>The extra time will not help someone on critical reading for example. You either know that or you don’t. Where it does seem to give an unfair advantage is in math. Most would not make careless errors if we had the chance to go back and spend double the time on every math problem.</p>
<p>Regarding the colleges will know if you take no time test…</p>
<p>There is an article in the NYTimes, which I could not locate anymore regarding the Wealthy and no time tests. However, according to that article, since 2003, colleges will not know if a student took a “no time” test/SAT. This is a result of a Handicapped person who sued the College Board for indicating his “handicap”. (this person has no hands) and it is illegal to label a person. Learning disability is classified under “Handicap” and colleges will have no indication if a student took a no time test.</p>
<p>I found the same regarding no “flag” for extra time on the online ABC news.</p>
<p>“Abrams believes the abuse has become more frequent since fall 2003, when the College Board stopped “flagging” the scores of students who took the SAT with extra time. Since the “flag” was dropped, colleges have no way of knowing that the test was taken under nonstandard conditions. Abrams and his co-author, Miriam Freedman, believe this has made it more appealing for students who don’t need the extra time to seek it out.”</p>
<p>the link:<a href=“Does Loophole Give Rich Kids More Time on SAT? - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1787712&page=2</a></p>
<p>I actually have a learning disability but didn’t know about the whole extra time thing until too late.
I’m going to apply for the extra time stuff next year when I take it again.
My label of “learning disabled” is true. It’s frustrating since I have that, but am gifted at the same time. You can imagine maybe.</p>
<p>That’s a VERY interesting article…I guess it’s unfair, but it’s life, so I’m not gonna get mad about it <em>smashes a wall</em> Ok, I’m done with my angery 
I’ll just do my best honestly.</p>
<p>lol That’s all you can really do.</p>
<p>That is so unfair. If I had that extra time, or just an extra 5 minutes on the essay, I would have gotten a 2400. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! DOWN WITH CB FOR ALLOWING THIS!</p>