This past week a group of students in New York were caught in a cheating ring. Read the article with more details here. A college student from Emory University, Sam Eshaghoff, was paid between 1,500 to 2,500 dollars to take the SAT for over half a dozen different high school students. Every year 2.25 million students take the SAT and only 2,500 cases are reported suspicious. According to a news article here, that's only one-tenth of one percent. How do they even pull if off? I've read two different books about cheating on the SAT. Both I would recommend and own, if you want to borrow them.
The Taker by J.M. Steele
Carly Biels should have it made. She has a terrific boyfriend, good friends, and she's popular. Okay, her parents have really high expectations and her dad is a Princeton alum, but she's got decent grades, so that should help her get into his alma mater, right? Wrong. When the SAT scores are released, hers just aren't good enough. Panicked, she becomes involved in a shady deal to cheat next time by having the mysterious Taker fix her score. Before she knows it, she's committed, her boyfriend is pushing her too far too fast, and her friends are well on their way to their own successes. Feeling desperate and alone, the teen turns to super-smart nerd Ronald Gross for tutoring. To make matters worse, her best friend, the editor of the school newspaper, takes investigative reporting seriously when rumors of a cheating ring start floating around the school. As Carly's life turns upside down, she is haunted by the choices she has made under pressure and finds out that people may not be what they seem. The protagonist's obsession is a bit much, but she is a sympathetic character, and Steele creates enough tension and interest in the various subplots to make this an enjoyable read.–Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green
and
Crunch Time by Mariah Fredericks
After skipping out of an SAT prep class, juniors Leo, Daisy, Max, and Jane agree to meet regularly at Jane's apartment for their own study group. They all work hard, seem to improve their test-taking skills, and forge friendships in the process. Soon, Max reveals to best friend Daisy that he wants more than friendship from her. Daisy, however, falls hard for Leo, who appears to fall back but doesn't know how to be devoted in a relationship, especially when he is drinking. Jane is the rich, beautiful wallflower whom Max could ask out if the idea occurred to him. After the SAT, a senior high scorer confesses that she was paid to take the exam for someone else. The whole school is in an uproar as the senior refuses to disclose the cheater's name. When two members of the study group are among the suspects, things begin to unravel. The extreme preoccupation with the SAT and getting into good colleges becomes somewhat weighty during the course of the novel and some of the plot elements test believability. However, because it is, for the most part, insightfully told from the various viewpoints of the four main characters in short, quick-moving segments with true-to-life dialogue, the story is redeemed. Readers will wonder what will happen to the friends as they embark on senior year at the conclusion.–Diane P. Tuccillo, City of Mesa Library, AZ
Now, why would someone cheat on a test? The pressure. Honestly, I wasn't as nervous as I could have been. Maybe it's because I'd taken it before in middle school just for the heck of it. Or maybe it was Andrew Flagel, now a VP at Brandeis, former head Dean of Admissions at GMU, and his reassuring that SAT's are only a big deal because WE, the students, make them a big deal. "Maybe they'd mean more if we ever gave them to you again in college." And as one of the articles above said, many universities are going away from the standardized tests, SAT and ACT. The essay is just going to have to be enough. For better or for worse, we'll find out.
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