Hello!

We've all taken enough tests in our lives to think we understand how they are scored and graded. But the College Board has thrown many families for a loop with the strange scoring on the June SAT. 

In this issue, we'll take a look at what happened and how it might have impacted you.

Thank you,


Jonathan West
Director
College Funding Group, LLC

Students and parents around the country are upset about some strange scoring on the June SAT math section-and rightly so! Let’s take a look at what happened.

SAT tests are designed to be consistent in testing of skills and knowledge. It wouldn’t be fair for one test to be significantly harder than another and not make some adjustment for that.  But for obvious reasons, the test questions must be different each time, and how do you compare the relative difficulty of two different questions?

The College Board (the group that handles the SAT and many other tests) uses certain statistical and other methods to gauge the relative difficulty of each SAT test. This means that the scoring scale on each test may vary. That’s different from how most students think of test taking.

Let’s say you are taking a test in your math class and it has 20 questions, each worth 5 points. If you get two questions wrong, you’ll get a 90. Pretty simple, and that is how we usually think of test scoring.

Except that’s not how the SAT works. There are 58 questions on the Math section. Let’s say you got 50 of them correct. In past tests, you would earn a Math score between 710-720. On the June test, 50 correct answers was scored as a 650. Sure that’s a fine score but it’s a big difference for the same number of correct answers.

And that sums up the problem: students who got the same number or fewer questions wrong on the June test than they did on earlier tests actually received lower Math scores.

The technical term for this is “equating”. The College Board determines, in advance, how they will adjust the scoring scale based on what they believe the relative hardness of the current test to be.

This is not the same as grading on a curve, because that is done after the test is given and the scores are known. The College Board makes their adjustments before the test.

The negative effects of the June fiasco were felt most by those who did the best.  Students who took the test to bring up their earlier SAT scores might have done an excellent job but received a lower score. At the upper end of the scoring scale, the cost of one wrong answer due to a careless mistake was quite significant.

This sort of adjustment goes on with every test, but in the past, it has been relatively unnoticed. That was not the case with the June test, and many families are understandably upset. There has been no official word from the College Board as to why they administered a test that they knew to be so much “easier” than previous ones.

The college community has known about problems with standardized testing for years. Hundreds of colleges do not require the SAT or ACT for admissions. Most recently, the University of Chicago announced it was dropping its requirement of either the SAT or ACT for applicants. Closer to home, Sweet Briar is test optional for those with a GPA of 3.0.

Further, the writing portion of the tests is rarely required. The Princeton Review says fewer than 25 colleges require the writing portion of the SAT or ACT (although most colleges have their own writing requirement).

What can you do if you were caught up in this scoring mess and did not receive as high a score as you hoped? The only answer, so far, is to take the test again, in October or November. That doesn’t seem especially fair given the stress and cost of taking the SAT, but it is the only way to try to get a higher score.

On the plus side, if you are pleased with your June score, you should be proud of your effort. Some students worried that colleges might discount a good June score, but there is no indication that will happen at all.

In the meantime, if the entire thing leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth, we completely understand.