Students Who Cheat on ACT, SAT Exams Face Few Consequences

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:31:00 GMT

Students at a Los Angeles area high school are suspected of paying a former student to take the ACT college entrance exam in their place.

The alleged cheaters will likely have their scores invalidated, but the colleges and universities that received the students’ scores may never know why, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times (“Cheating on ACT, SAT College Entrance Exams Has Few Consequences,” July 14, 2008).

While students who are caught cheating in college may face probation or be expelled, students who cheat on one a college entrance exam get a second shot at a higher score. And neither the college nor the student’s high school are alerted about the student’s dishonest behavior.

“We don’t tell schools or anyone else; we simply cancel the score,” said ACT spokesman Ed Colby. “What we’re trying to do is make sure the scores that we send to colleges are valid. It’s not our intention to go around punishing students who make mistakes or who’ve done something they shouldn’t have.”

Cheating Policies Don’t Encourage Ethical Conduct

Critics contend that the ACT’s policy to keep testing irregularities confidential — a policy that is also held by the SAT — sends a message that cheating on the test is OK and has few consequences.

“What they’re basically saying is ‘Try it. You have nothing to lose,’ ” said Michael Josephson, president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics. “Why not say to someone who robbed a 7-Eleven, ‘Please give back the merchandise or pay for it, but we don’t want you to feel bad about stealing.’ ”

Josephson argues that the ACT and the SAT cheating policies are too lax and firmer consequences need to be put in place.

Tom Ewing, spokesman for the Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT, said that prohibiting a student suspected of cheating from re-taking the test could hinder that student’s educational future — a move he said “seems a bit extreme.”

The two companies have found that cheating on the tests is relatively rare and prompts only about 2,000 investigations on average out of the more than 3 million tests administered each year. Most accusations of cheating are made by students or exam proctors and typically involve a student copying from another’s exam.

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College Board Helps College Recruiters Target Low-Income Students

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:38:00 GMT

As part of a College Board pilot program nearly 30 colleges and universities will be allowed to buy the names and personal information of low-income high school students — a data set that has been off limits since the early 1980s, according to the Chicago Tribune (“Colleges Recruit Low-Income Students,” May 24, 2008).

The College Board currently sells data to colleges that it collects from the SAT and other College Board–administered exams, including high school students’ grades, test scores, race, religion, and other demographic information. The nonprofit college membership association stopped offering family income data nearly 20 years ago after it found that some schools had misused that information to target admissions offers to students who could afford full tuition.

But in response to lobbying by colleges and universities that are “trying to bring more economic diversity to their overwhelmingly affluent student bodies,” the College Board is now making the income data partially available again, writes Chicago Tribune reporter Jodi Cohen.

“We are using it for good, not for evil,” said Bruce Poch, dean of admissions at Pomona College. “The myth of unaffordability has become a nightmare, and we can’t directly speak to kids or their families unless we can really target them.”

To ensure that students’ privacy isn’t violated and that the information isn’t misused, schools cannot request a search that would reveal which students have family incomes above or below a certain level. College admissions officers can only request the names of students who live in low-income communities, determined by their high school and nine-digit ZIP code.

While the College Board will not disclose the names of colleges currently participating in its expanded pilot program, Amherst College, Williams College, and Wellesley College were three of the schools that tested the system last year. Amherst Dean of Admissions Tom Parker said 1,000 more low-income students received direct mail from Amherst after using the program.

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Students Who Cheat on ACT, SAT Exams Face Few Consequences

College Board Helps College Recruiters Target Low-Income Students