There is hope: SAT score erred

By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer
31 minutes ago

About 4,000 students who took the main SAT college entrance exam last
October received incorrectly low scores because of problems with the
scanning of their answer sheets.

The College Board, which owns the exam, notified college admissions
offices of the mistake and provided the proper scores for affected
students in a letter received by some Tuesday afternoon. A College
Board spokeswoman, Jennifer Topiel, said students would be notified by
e-mail Thursday. Affected students will be refunded their fees from
that sitting, the letter said.

Topiel said the "vast majority of students" affected received scores
that were within 100 points of their correct score on the
three-section, 2,400-point test.

Admissions officials, however, said Tuesday some students had been
affected by as much as 130 points - forcing schools to scramble to
re-evaluate candidates at a time when many are trying to make final
decisions.

"For some this means a scholarship adjustment, for some it means
admission to a more selective program within the school," said
Jacquelyn Nealon, dean of admissions and financial aid at New York
Institute of Technology, where she said between 25 and 50 applicants
were affected.

"We'll pull all those folders tomorrow and reach out to any students,"
she said. "For a school that processes tens of thousands of
applications, this is major."

Bruce Poch, vice president and dean of admission at Pomona College in
California, where about a half-dozen applicants were affected, said he
was told by a College Board official the problem primarily affected a
testing site on the East Coast. But Topiel said the students who did
not receive credit for some answers were spread around the country.

Fewer than 1 percent of students who took the test in October were
affected, Topiel said. All tests from that sitting, as well as from two
others, were rescanned.

The investigation was prompted by a routine request for a score
verification.

"We immediately launched a thorough investigation into the scoring of
that test," she said. "After that investigation, we confirmed that
there was a systemic issue."

The letter described the grading problem as a technical issue but
Topiel said the College Board was still investigating what went wrong.

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