The excuses test administering authorities actually come up with can be quite amusing, especially when it comes to highly important national-level (but internationally-taken) tests like the SAT. Recently, College Board (the organisation that administers the SATs) reported that some 4,000 students received incorrect scores, with some getting higher-than-normal results, but most receiving scores unbefitting their hard work and intelligence.

And their excuse: Rain. It seems that wet weather could have caused the answer sheets to "expand", making it difficult for the scanning head of the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) devices used to read the answers.

Of course, some college deans have attempted to mollify the parents and students involved by saying that many students take the SATs more than once (which is true), and that admissions officers actually look at the pattern from all the tests taken, rather than just the results of one test - making this "one screw-up" much less critical.

But I strongly believe that whether the "screw-up" is critical or not isn’t for anyone to judge. After all, no one outside the university admissions departments ever knows why a student gets accepted or rejected by a university. Therefore, I strongly support calls for full disclosure as this "screw-up" "…would be unfair to those students who may have been wrongly denied admission."

[News via The Electric New Paper]