The SAT scores of about 80 applicants to Brown were affected by a recently revealed scoring error, according to Dean of Admission Jim Miller '73. Nevertheless, no admissions decisions at Brown were changed because of the error, Miller said.
Approximately 4,000 students who took the SAT exam in October received incorrectly low scores due to problems with scanning answer sheets, the College Board announced last week. 83 percent of the incorrect scores were off by fewer than 40 points.
The mistake affected 0.8 percent of students who took the October test. Only 5 percent of the affected tests were off by 100 points or more, and only 16 tests were off by more than 200 points. The New York Times reported Tuesday that some tests were off by more than 400 points and that an additional 1,600 tests will be rescored.
"When we got the notification (we) looked at all 80 students," Miller said, adding that the "vast majority of the changes were miniscule."
The largest change among Brown applicants was one score that was raised by 150 points. But in each case involving significantly altered scores, Miller said, the corrected scores were lower than scores the students had submitted from other sittings of the test.
In short, "nobody was disadvantaged" by the scoring error, Miller said. No admissions decisions were changed based on the corrected scores, including early decision results.
But at least one student decided against applying to Brown because of the scoring mistake. The Times reported that Amanda Hellerman, a senior at a New York high school, chose not to apply to Brown because she initially thought her SAT scores were too low, but her score rose by 320 points after the corrections were made.
"I didn't apply to certain schools and I almost didn't apply to others," Hellerman told the Times.
The College Board notified admissions offices of the error March 7 and students by last Thursday. Students whose scores were affected will be refunded the registration fee from that sitting of the test, according to a March 8 College Board press release.
Some admissions officers criticized the nonprofit College Board for its delay in announcing the error, which was originally discovered when two students requested re-grading in December. The College Board press release said it took months to re-check all of the tests.
The press release also stated that some correct answers on the affected tests were not counted because of problems with the scoring machinery, which have partly been attributed to excessive moisture that caused the answer sheets to expand.
Since 2003, the SAT has been scored in Austin, Texas, by Pearson Educational Measurement.
A Pearson spokesperson told the Associated Press it had examined all the subsequent administrations of the test from November, December and January and found no additional mistakes.
The error has shaken some people's confidence in the College Board. Admissions officers have raised concerns to various media sources about the way in which the mistake was discovered and the apparent lack of accountability it reveals on the part of the College Board.
