New SAT Policy

2008-07-18 04:15:19 (GMT) (WiredPRNews.com - Education)

Norfolk, Virginia (WiredPRNews.com) — Beginning in the spring school season for the class of 2010, high school juniors will be able to decide which of their SAT scores their colleges of choice will be able to see. The current policy put in place by the College Board dictates that colleges can see what score the student makes every time they take the test–even the poor scores. Beginning in March 2009, students will be allowed to hide their SAT low scores or the number of times they have taken the test.

Senior Vice-president of the SAT exam, Laurence Bunin, said that this policy will make the exam less stressful and more comfortable for the students while maintaining the integrity of the SAT test. With this new policy, they will have more flexibility to control their SAT scores.

Some counselors have raised questions that this new policy will encourage the students to re-take the test several times for those who can afford to pay the fees and sign up tutoring sessions. However, students with low incomes and first generation students will be at a disadvantage. In response to this, the College Board has said that such criticism is baseless as the average score on the first SAT retake is 40 points and there is no benefit of taking the test more than twice. The fee waivers will also allow low income students to take the SAT free of charge twice.

The policy has raised other questions as well. If colleges are unable to see the score history of the student, they will not be able to understand how students earned their high score. For example, one student will score 750 in their first test and another student will score similar marks on the 9th test, so colleges should be able to distinguish between the two students.

Despite the debates between the critics and the College Board, the change in the policy is definitely going to become popular among students.

Wired Education Reporter