Rule change gives students option to hide their lowest SAT scores

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Recent changes to the SAT college entrance exam will give students in the class of 2010 and beyond the option to hide their lowest test scores while submitting to colleges only their high score, which for the wealthiest students often come after hours of expensive tutoring and retakes.

Under the previous rules developed by the New York-based College Board, all of a student’s scores were submitted regardless of how many times he or she took the test.

For the College Board, the multimillion-dollar nonprofit often accused of profiting mightily off of students’ obsession with college admissions, the decision had to do with offering “more flexibility” and “reduced stress” for anxious juniors and seniors, said spokeswoman Alana Klein.

Critics of the test, however, worry that changes will unfairly disadvantage students without the means to pay for countless retakes and private tutors who promise to jack up unacceptable scores.

“You’re sitting in an admissions office and you see a 600” out of 800 possible points per section on the SAT, said Robert Schaeffer, education director of the Cambridge, Mass.-based National Center for Fair and Open Testing, in an interview last week. “Was that taken cold or after a $900 Kaplan class ... or after one of the high-priced $20,000 to $30,000 at-home tutors?”

Klein said the new policy was in no way unfair, citing feedback from all types of parents and students who called for the change.

“The underserved want the ability to choose [the best score] as much as students in other populations,” she said, adding in 2007 the College Board offered $20 million in fee waivers for low-income students to take the $45 test. Students are limited to two waivers, but Klein said most students are not encouraged to take it more than twice.

Rich Crowley, Fairfax County’s coordinator of school counseling, acknowledged many students’ tutoring advantage, but said he doesn’t believe the new policy will affect most of the about 10,000 juniors in the district who will take the SAT next year.

“From what I’ve seen, there’s a point of diminishing returns on the number of times you take it,” he said. “You’re not likely to do significantly better on your 20th time than you did on the 19th.”

lfabel@dcexaminer.com

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