http://www.wsj.com/articles/cheating-concerns-in-asia-cloud-sat-testing-1433549895 Cheating Concerns in Asia Cloud SAT TestingFresh questions about exam’s security as number of foreign applicants to U.S. universities surges
Some schools in China receive tests in locked boxes, in response to security concerns.
By Te-Ping Chen and Abby Schultz
June 5, 2015 8:18 p.m. ET
Worries over cheating on the SAT college-entrance exam by students in Asia are raising fresh questions about the test’s security as the number of foreign applicants to American universities surges.
Students and test-prep advisers say it is becoming easier than ever for foreign students to game the test, with answers becoming available ahead of the exams, especially in Asia. The nonprofit College Board, which runs the SAT, has delayed thousands of scores in Asia this school year as it investigates.
All the students who took the SAT in May at two major international schools in China—including the Western Academy of Beijing—had their scores withheld by the College Board pending investigation. Scores were also held back at several other international schools in China, which are typically attended by foreign passport holders.
A guidance counselor at Western Academy of Beijing said she and her colleagues believed all testing sites in China had been affected and that the delay didn’t seem specific to them.
Similar delays occurred at other Asian testing sites last fall, and students in telephone interviews said their scores have also been withheld recently in the Mideast, including Egypt. The final SAT of the current academic season will be given globally on Saturday.
“I do not remember, over the last 20 years of giving the test, such a volume of delayed scores [or] rampant allegations of cheating,” said Hamilton Gregg, an independent educational consultant who counsels students in China.
Concerns about cheating on tests by foreign students are reverberating in the U.S., with the recent indictment in Pittsburgh of 15 Chinese nationals accused of participating in a scheme that allegedly provided people with fake passports to help them take the SAT on behalf of others.
In letters to students notifying them of their delayed scores, the College Board said it conducts investigations “when warranted based on a reported security incident,” without elaborating. It told students to expect waits of up to five weeks and added that “we are unwavering in our commitment” to ensuring accurate scores.
The College Board referred questions to the Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT on its behalf.
An ETS spokesman said fewer than 5,000 scores have been canceled after investigations over the past year, out of more than four million test takers around the globe. The ETS said it consistently introduces new security measures, but declined to provide details for fear of compromising their effectiveness.
The College Board and ETS declined to answer how many cancellations occurred outside the U.S., saying they didn’t want to talk about specific “populations” of students as it could compromise their investigations.
To be sure, delays have occurred in previous years and don’t usually stop foreign students getting into college. Most schools are flexible if applicants’ scores are held back for reasons beyond students’ control.
But the latest delays are a major source of anxiety, many students and parents say. Not having scores in hand, especially in the fall, can make it hard to decide which schools to aim for or whether to seek early admission.
A broader concern is that the allegations will cast a shadow over the admissions process at a time when the number of foreign students taking the SAT and applying to U.S. schools is soaring.
There were more than 138,000 test registrations in East Asia and the Pacific in the 2013-2014 school year, compared with fewer than 79,000 in 2008-2009, according to College Board data presented at an education conference this year. The College Board didn’t respond to requests for comparable U.S. data.
A record 886,052 overseas students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities in 2013-2014, with the largest number—274,439—being Chinese nationals, according to the Institute of International Education.
“It’s fair to say that everyone’s ‘Spidey sense’ is up a little bit,” especially regarding applications from China and other countries with reports of testing irregularities, said Cheryl Borden, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Babson College, outside Boston. Some 1,024 of its 7,515 undergraduate applications for the coming year came from high schools in Asia.
Exam-cheating methods appear to be evolving as the College Board and ETS tighten security, test-prep experts say.
In past years, students used “hired guns” to take the exam for them, as has happened in the U.S. While experts say students still try that sometimes, it became harder when test-givers stepped up identification checks.
Other students appear to take advantage of time-zone differences to memorize and then post questions online or otherwise leak them ahead of tests the same day elsewhere in the world. Chinese agents advertise on social media they have staffers taking the test in New Zealand, five hours ahead of China, so they can get answers and share them, said a guidance counselor in the region, who declined to be named.
Han Zhiyang, a 17-year-old 11th-grader at Beijing National Day School, said he saw answers from his test online soon after he finished it in Japan in May.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, my score is going to be delayed!’” he said. It was, though Mr. Han said he isn’t planning to apply to U.S. colleges until the fall.
Mr. Han’s school said only some of its test takers had been affected by score delays.
Warren Lavender, a supervisor at a Tokyo SAT test site, said he caught a Chinese student last fall with a crib sheet with test answers. They came from a website that tried to elude detection by staying live for a few hours before being taken down, he said.
Students also report varying security procedures at Asian test sites. At some, students say they must surrender their smartphones, but not at others.
In the U.S., test administrators in 2012 beefed up security across the nation, after the discovery of a cheating ring involving Long Island high-school students. The students were accused of paying others up to $3,600 to stand in for them during exams. The ETS now requires students to show photographic proof of their identification when signing up for tests, among other measures.
Chinese test-prep consultants say over the last couple of years they have seen an even more disturbing trend: tests leaked in their entirety a day or more before the actual testing date.
FairTest, an organization which advocates for test-optional college admissions policies, said it received an advance copy of the May 2 SAT exam a day before it was to be administered in the U.S. It said it obtained the copy from an undisclosed source from South Korea who emailed it to FairTest and The Washington Post.
FairTest said the source didn’t provide details on how the test was obtained. Bob Schaeffer, FairTest’s public education director, said he studied Internet sites the day after the test and found students had posted questions and answers identical to the versions in his possession.
Analysts say rising competition to get into top U.S. schools may be contributing to cheating.
“In the past, a few hundred would apply. Now it’s thousands,” said Gabriel Niu of Kemeixin Consulting, which counsels students. “We are definitely at the point of a credibility crisis.”
—Melissa Korn contributed to this article.
