ACT, SAT Cheaters Seldom Punished

Agencies that administer college-entrance exams usually just cancel the scores

by Carla Rivera
Los Angeles Times

A group of students at a Los Angeles high school is suspected of cheating on the ACT college entrance exam by paying a former student, who used fraudulent identification, to take the tests.

The testing agency recently began investigating the claims, which could result in cancellation of scores provided to colleges.

But those colleges will not be told why the scores are invalid, nor will the students' high school be clued in.

In all likelihood, the students will retake the test with few consequences, the result of a little-known policy by the ACT and the College Board, which owns the rival SAT, to keep such irregularities confidential.


Kept in the dark

Each year, millions of stressed-out students take the two tests, hoping that a good score will secure them a spot at the nation's top colleges.

But most students know little of what occurs when a score is in dispute.

And the policies of the two nonprofit test companies seem to satisfy no one. Some complain that scores arbitrarily are canceled without evidence, while others criticize the companies for giving a free pass to cheaters.

If a score is invalidated, colleges receive a generic alert like this one sent to the University of California, Los Angeles.

"The ACT cancels scores for a variety of reasons, including illness of the examinee, mistiming of the test, disturbances or irregularity at the testing site. ... It is the ACT policy to treat the ACT's reasoning for canceling a specific score as confidential."


Question of integrity

The agencies say their only concern is the integrity of scores, and that it would be impractical to expose student cheaters or try to exact punishment, such as barring them from retaking the test or noting infractions on transcripts.

"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 done."

The Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT for the College Board, had a similar response.

"The SAT does play a very important role in the college admissions process, and to prohibit somebody from taking the test that might hinder their educational future seems a bit extreme," spokesman Tom Ewing said.

But critics assert that such evasions let student cheaters off the hook.


Sending wrong message

"Their position is thoroughly unaccountable and promotes unethical conduct," said Michael Josephson, president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics. "What they're basically saying is, 'Try it. You have nothing to lose.' 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.' ?"

He contended that the stakes are much higher than just invalidated test scores.

With students spending hours preparing for the exams and their parents spending money on tutoring, the exams remain important factors in college admission, even though some colleges have stopped requiring them.

"If you put up for auction a guaranteed spot into Harvard or UCLA, people would pay tons of money — that's how much they're stealing when they falsely get a place they don't deserve," Josephson said.

According to the companies, cheating spurs about 2,000 probes out of the more than 3 million tests each year.

"I've known about this for 25 years but did not believe it served anybody's interest to be told there were no consequences for cheating on tests," said Paul Kanarek, president of the Princeton Review of Southern California. "It's not the right ethical message to send."

Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5896315.html