Press Releases

College Board Releases SAT Answer Sheet Processing Report

07/20/06

NEW YORK—The College Board today released a report from independent consultants, Booz Allen Hamilton, confirming that the Board's process for scanning SAT^® exams is reliable. Last March, after discovering a scanning problem on the SAT administered in October 2005, the College Board asked Booz Allen Hamilton to analyze the scanning process. The full report and an executive summary are available at www.collegeboard.com/sat/answersheetprocessing/report and www.collegeboard.com/sat/answersheetprocessing/summary.

Before the end of the college admissions season, the College Board re-reported the scores of the small percentage of students who had been negatively affected by the scanning problem and directed its scanning vendor, Pearson Educational Measurement, to put in place additional measures to safeguard against future scanning problems.

Booz Allen Hamilton was asked to conduct a review of the scanning process to identify any further specific improvement opportunities to minimize any risk that incorrect scores will be reported in the future due to scanning-related problems. The project scope included the new safeguards already instituted by the College Board in March.

The Booz Allen Hamilton report concluded "…the current process is reliable and has prudent controls in place to safeguard scoring accuracy for those marks made in accordance with test directions. The operational changes made by College Board in response to the October administration further improved process reliability by introducing scanning redundancy, more frequent scoring checks, an environmental acclimation period to eliminate the effects of humidity, and other safeguards."

Booz Allen Hamilton found that all "primary risks"—those that would be likely to affect multiple answer sheets, cause scanning or editing errors, and result in a scoring error—"had prudent quality controls in place to prevent an error from occurring or to observe and correct an error before it propagated to a scoring error."  The report identified 16 "secondary risks" to be addressed in the scanning process. "The College Board is addressing every one of those risks," College Board President Gaston Caperton said.

Caperton added, "Students are our first concern, and we're always exploring ways to serve them more effectively. We believe that the system for processing SAT exams is reliable, and we're pleased with Booz Allen Hamilton's assessment."