Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Early SAT

My son in 6th grade decided to take the SAT for mainly the math part. Signing up was a nightmare- our local high schools DO NOT have the paper application anymore, and you must sign up via paper (not online) if you are under 13.
Repeated calls to the College Board led them to finally mail the application two weeks past the deadline, so we paid the extra fee.
I took him for the test. The head proctor said, "oh, you take the test over here alone!" I asked her why, as he has no accommodations, and she said they do that for children (he was the only child testing out of several hundred test-takers).
When I questioned her about that, she became defensive and said "okay, you have to leave now! You can't stay here since you are a parent."
Then she said, "oh, I see he gets extra time on the test!" I knew THAT was wrong, so I questioned her about that. After lots of haggling, she agreed, oh, you are right, he has no accommodations. He takes the test and feels good about it (almost 8 hours long, with the breaks).
Several weeks go by, and I can't get his scores. Lots of calls and emails to the College Board, lots of run around.
Finally, I get a human on the phone and they say, "oops, the proctor gave your son the WRONG TEST BOOKLET. We can't grade the test since he got the booklet for people with accommodations and he doesn't have accommodations."
Can you believe that??!! They won't grade the test. He can retake it, but he isn't sure he wants to do that again.

I am suspicious that he also was given extended time. A standard administration of the SAT does not take eight hours.

I agree with Kai.

Time limits with extended time:

-Time and a half, or 50 percent additional time (5 hours and 3 minutes on the SAT)
-Double time, or 100 percent additional time (6 hours and 40 minutes on the SAT)
-More time (for instance, in rare circumstances, 150 percent additional time or 8 hours and 20 minutes on the SAT)

vs 3 hours and 45 minutes, plus 3 short breaks, for a standard administration.

I assume he was given time and a half, since double time and +150% time both have to be administered at their own schools, over the course of two days.

Oh, and it says right up front at the College Board that tests with unapproved accommodations will be invalidated, so this is in keeping with their openly-stated policy. It's the proctor that clearly was the issue.

Paying extra to test through a talent search helps with the issues not specific to the proctor. That's lousy that a bad proctor invalidated your child's test.

No, he definitely didn't get extra time. I guess it was more like 5 hours including breaks. They said he took 9 sections and apparently there are 10 sections total on the test. I was there and the proctor assured me that he didn't get extra time, but they gave him the wrong test booklet!