Last year, high stakes cheating gained national attention when Samuel Eshagoff was arrested on September 27 in Great Neck, New York. His charges, taking both the SAT and the ACT for others using falsified ID’s.
When it came to results, Eshagoff was one of the best, scoring in the mid 30s on the ACT and as high as 2,220 on the SAT. According to a January 1st 60 Minutes report, students paid Eshagoff up to $3,600 in order to get their ideal score. These extreme measures have caused many to question both the moral fiber of the kids and the security measures that are supposed to protect testing.“Unfortunately, it doesn’t surprise me,” Kurt Landgraf, President of the Educational Testing Service, told 60 Minutes.
Landgraf works for the College Board and is in charge of the security of the SAT.
“Since I believe that almost all the students take the test honestly, with integrity and the score is valid, it’s very important that we not overreact to this case, or any future cases, and do things that are onerous and detrimental to the actual long term security or access for the administration,” Landgraf said.
Like students in Great Neck, Seaholm students face similar pressure to succeed. The Highlander administered a survey to one-hundred students who have taken either the ACT or SAT to find out how tempted they were to cheat.
54 percent of the students said they weren’t satisfied with their score. If they wouldn’t get caught, 22 percent of the students said they would cheat on the SAT/ACT.
“I want to succeed, and it feels so important to do well and go to a good college. It feels like one test score dictates our futures,” junior Max Cormier said, adding he wasn’t compelled to cheat.
If they wouldn’t get caught, almost half said that they would go back to a previous section after time ran out. And 16 percent said they had gone back to previous sections. According to the survey, 25 percent who said they wouldn’t cheat are willing to go back to previous sections and sixteen percent have, but this is technically still cheating.
According the College Board’s official web site, the timing of each section is strictly scheduled.
“This means that you cannot skip ahead or go back to a previous test or test section while taking either the SAT or SAT Subject Tests,” the web site states on its test Security and Fairness page.
The Highlander survey results not only show common misconceptions about the test itself, but also a blatant disregard for rules and a failure by test administrators to enforce them.
“I’ve seen people do it (going back to previous sections); I’ve even done it for a question,” said one student who asked not to be named.“I knew it was cheating when I did it, but it doesn’t seem as striking (as other methods of cheating).”
With the discovery of the New York cheating scandal, the significance of the tests has also been called into further question.
Administrators from both University of Michigan and Michigan State University assure that their admissions process is correct.
“Because the University of Michigan evaluates test scores as one of many factors in our admissions process we have not made plans to change our process at this time,” Erica Sanders, Managing Director of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Michigan, said in an e-mail. “However, we review our process each year and will make adjustments if we believe a change is warranted.”
“We believe that the College Board is administering the tests in a way that minimizes improprieties,” Gabe Santi, Director of Communications in Michigan State University’s Office of Admission, said when asked about the fairness of using SAT scores.
