I guess by now you have read about the SAT fraud that was uncovered in New York recently involving 20 people so far. It seems that a bright teenager, Sam Eshaghoff, 19, who scored 2100 out of a possible 2400 on his own SAT exam, admitted to taking the test for at least 15 times for other students in return for cash amounts ranging between $500 and $3,600.
To add insult to injury is the attitude of this young academic gun-for-hire who admits to having pulled off the scam. He acknowledged that he made a mistake that he would not repeat if he had it to do over again. “I thought it was just an easy way to make money,” he said. “And just like any other easy way to make money, it’s always too good to be true.”
But his other comments seemed to indicate that he had little remorse. In the CBS 60 Minutes interview he seemed to be holding back a smirk as he intoned that he felt like he provided “reliable service”. He seemed smugly proud of his academic prowess and not all that abashed that he had used it to circumvent the intent of the college entrance screening process. He argued with the interviewer that the kids he helped get into the colleges they were able to attend “didn’t replace anyone” and it gave them a “new lease” on their academic life. Over all, he just couldn’t see that what he had done caused any real harm.
The harm was not to the academic world overall. Those students who gained admission to those schools will either stay the course or earn their degrees, or they will drop out. The harm done was to those students who worked hard and played fair. The harm was to the system, which although far from perfect, is the system we have to work with until something better comes along.
While we give a hearty “thumbs up” to the teachers who heard rumors that students had paid others to take the SAT and the ACT for them, we sadly shake our heads to the notion that this is probably the tip of an ugly and dangerous iceberg. If it was as easy for the lad who pulled this scam off to do it, how many others have there been of which we have no knowledge.
“It all started with some kid approaching me. He’s like, ‘Yo, you’re good on your SATs and I’m not. And you know this is possible so how much is it going to take’?” Eshaghoff said, adding that taking the test for someone else was as simple as making a high school ID.
“I took the template from my high school ID, pasted my picture on top of it, and whatever person’s name whose test I was taking, I would have their name and date of birth on it. And it was really as easy as that,” he said.
The trick even worked for his female “clients”.
“The girl has a foreign name that could be perceived as unisex, like a girl could be named Alex, but if she needs me to go and take her SATs under the name Alex whatever, it’s easy as that,” he said.
It seems to me, and some of the others in our “think tank” at ABC College Planning, that the SAT is to college academics what the BSC (Bowl Championship Series) is to college athletics. We complain that it is not always fair and that the system can be manipulated, but until something better comes along we live with it and work with it. But meanwhile, we are outraged to see outright cheating, flagrant violations of ethics, and even outright fraud. For a folks like us who are passionate about helping students practice hard and study hard so they can improve their SAT scores, that just gets our collective dander up!
What should the punishment be for students caught cheating on their college admissions tests?
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