Scoring Errors Exceed Estimate

Thousands of SAT scores from the October 2005 test, including the scores of several Harvard applicants, were mistakenly lowered by up to 400 points out of a possible 2400, the College Board said yesterday. This represents a much greater disparity than previously publicized.

“For one student the difference was 320 points,” Harvard Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons wrote in an e-mail. “A second student had a difference of 130 points; for a third, the difference was 120 points. For the rest, the differences were smaller.”

“Sixteen out of the 4,000 students who were affected had score increases between 200 and 400 points,” said Jennifer Topiel, executive director of public affairs for the College Board.

Representatives for the College Board had previously characterized the largest SAT scoring mistake as only 100 points lower than the score the student should have received.

Pearson Educational Management, the company responsible for SAT scoring, said in a statement that the errors were caused by humidity in the environment, which “caused the answer sheets to expand,” and by answer ovals filled in too lightly to be read by the scanner.

In order to prevent the mistake from reoccurring, the statement read, “we will also implement a process to allow answer sheets to have more time to acclimate to our scanning operations.”

Robert Schaeffer, director of Fairtest, a non-profit organization focusing on the fair administration of standardized tests, said that he is concerned that college admissions decisions have been affected by the scoring error.

“Many colleges have already made their admissions decisions; some applicants no doubt will have been hurt,” Schaeffer said.

Schaeffer cited a past incident in which 900 students—some of whose rejections were later overturned—received incorrect scores on the Graduate Management Admission Test as evidence that scoring errors can affect admissions decisions.

Fitzsimmons wrote that Harvard still stands by its statement, released Wednesday, that no applicants have been affected by the College Board’s mistake.

“The mis-scoring had no effect on Early Action candidates,” Fitzsimmons added.

“Of the four students affected, two were admitted and two were rejected. The two rejected students would not have been admitted if we had received their corrected scores.”

But erroneously low scores could have an effect on the range of colleges to which students decided to apply, said Jon Reider, Director of College Counseling at San Francisco University High School.

“I sometimes find myself saying that these scores are sort of low for this college and you can apply but you’re below the average,” said Reider. “I’ve had admissions officers tell me that a girl that applied ED at Harvard is a fine student but her SAT scores were just too low.”

The discrepancy in SAT scores especially has the potential to affect applicants to schools with less competitive admissions, Reider said.

“Harvard is turning down thousands of kids who have super test scores, so if a kid has 150 more points on the SAT, I don’t think Bill Fitzsimmons will bat an eyelash,” Reider said.

“If it’s USC, which doesn’t have the same applicant pool, then it’ll make all the difference in the world. So 200 points at USC might put that kid in a more competitive range in admissions.”