In SAT Snafu, 1,600 Await Error-Check

A week after colleges received notice of scoring errors on 4,000 SAT exams taken in October, the College Board disclosed on Tuesday that 1,600 exams had yet to be checked for errors.

“In the crush of all the work associated with the rescanning, rescoring and re-reporting of October scores, we lost track of these 1600 answer sheets that were in a different location,” Brian O’Reilly, executive director of SAT services for the College Board, said yesterday. “It was only on Monday that we realized these also had to be rescanned.”

Director of Undergraduate Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’73 emphasized that a small change in SAT scores will have a negligible effect on Harvard admissions decisions.

“Our own admissions decisions are not determined by scores,” McGrath wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

Over four dozen applicants to Harvard were affected by the College Board’s error. One applicant had his score lowered by 320 points.

The 1,600 un-rescored tests were placed in a different location from the other tests, due to a disruption during the administration of those exams, according to O’Reilly.

The College Board still does not know how many of the 1,600 scores will prove inaccurate, but scoring errors, if any, should be determined by next week, O’Reilly said.

“As soon as we know the names of the students who might be affected, all 1,600, and where we sent their scores, we will be notifying colleges,” O’Reilly said. “Colleges will be alerted to the possibility that these are the students whose scores could possibly change.”

William Smelko, a high school senior at the St. Augustin school, located in San Diego, Calif., who applied to Harvard regular decision, expressed his dismay at the possibility of more scoring errors.

“Because you never know whether the scores you get back are really what you deserve...that kind of uncertainty just brings out more anxiety,” Smelko said. “If the score is not really your best, it makes you wonder if you fairly got into a college or unjustly got denied.”