SAT, also known as ‘Scholastic Assessment Test’, which is one of the most sought after entrance tests for students who aspire to study in undergraduate courses across the USA and Canada has caused some Indian candidates to express skepticism on the delay and scoring of the test, conducted on May 7.
Some candidates told the Free Press Journal that they tried reaching out to officials at the College Board but haven’t received a response that addresses their concerns yet.
“The results were supposed to be declared on May 20 but it got announced on May 24, Tuesday which was not the case in other parts of the country,” said Atharv Diwan, an SAT candidate from Mumbai, who aims to take admission in the University of Texas, University of California, Berkeley, etc. “We are worried about the scores that we have received because it seems our scores have not been evaluated properly. Some of us had scored above 2500 in the practice tests but it shows below 1500,” added Diwan got around 1380 out of 6000 in SAT and aims to give the exam again in August.
Nathan Rodrigues, another candidate from Pune, re-registered for the SAT exam that is to be conducted in August 2022 as sending the paper for rechecking would have cost him around 55 US dollars. “When you contact the College Board regarding any queries about the examination they respond with what’s mentioned on the website, which has information about SAT that all candidates already know about. The officials who picked our calls told us that there’s nothing wrong with the scores,” said Nathan, who scored 1320 but is not convinced with it. “Getting 12-13 questions wrong has never been the case for me and there’s no clarity as to how our results are being evaluated as there are no officials in India that we are in touch with,” added Nathan who paid another Rs. 8500 for attempting SAT again and had to book his slot in a Mumbai centre due to availability issues in Pune.
Smita Kulkarni, a parent whose daughter gave SAT, said that many candidates reached out to officials but didn’t get any response. “We don’t have any transparency in how scores are being evaluated. Are they conducting the exams here and then sending the papers to the US? Why are they not allowing international students to receive both the questions and answers as a part of re-evaluation rather than just sending the answers? We can’t make it out if there are problems with the scores unless and until the questions and answers are revealed to us since all the candidates get their papers with questions sequenced differently,” said Smita, who added that her daughter has options in IIIT Hyderabad, Chennai Mathematical Institute, etc but she wanted to give SAT considering the top 100 colleges she can get into through the Test.
SAT 1, is a general test that has been developed to evaluate the written, verbal and mathematical acumen of the candidates. SAT 2, on the other hand, is a more subject-focused test. Recently the College Board announced that the SAT exam will go digital starting in 2023 and it will be a two-hour long test instead of three hours as is the case now.
