It’s college admissions season again, and the members of Boston University’s freshmen class no longer have to worry about studying long into the night, accumulating extracurricular activities, perfecting their essays or paying exorbitant sums to college “coaches.” Now it’s up to their younger brothers and sisters to stress themselves out — only this year, there’s one more thing to be stressed out about.
Hundreds of high school students received incorrect SAT scores this year due to negligence at Pearson Educational Management, the testing company that scores the exam for the College Board. The errors have affected individual results by as much as 450 points — but as any college student can tell you, it doesn’t take that much to sway an admissions decision. In today’s ultra-competitive environment, admissions officers have to decide between thousands upon thousands of well-qualified applicants; student A and student B may be equal in almost every respect, but if B scored 10 points higher on her SAT, she’ll be the one to win out.
As April approaches, many high school students have already received their letters of acceptance, and the rest of the notifications are on their way. Unfortunately, it’s too late for all colleges to reverse the decisions of those who’ve been rejected due to erroneous SAT results, and it certainly wouldn’t be right to tell those who’ve been admitted that they can’t, in fact, attend their schools.
The outcry over the scoring errors underscores just how much we’ve come to rely on the SAT. Ideally, students’ worth wouldn’t be determined by a single exam. But when so many people are applying — many to large universities like BU — standardized tests are a necessary evil.
The problem is that the SAT isn’t the only test that has to be processed; in recent years, the volume of tests passing through the hands of testing companies has grown exponentially, largely due to the state-administered exams mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. The companies are under continuous pressure to process more and more exams, and it’s only natural that mistakes have arisen.
Something has to be done to ensure that tests are scored both accurately and efficiently, and the first step is to hold accountable those who administer the exams. The College Board, though not directly responsible for the SAT scoring errors, oversees the entire process, and it’s time that people put pressure on the company to deliver accurate results. When so much of our fate depends on a single exam, the least we can expect is that the scores we receive will be the right ones.
