SATisfying result amid test chaos
It wasn’t easy nabbing a near-perfect 1590 on the SAT, but Matthew Chekhlov earned every point.
After his original March 14 test date in Manhattan was called off because of the COVID-19 lockdown, the Stuyvesant HS senior was shut out of full or canceled exam-taking sessions in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Finally, in August, he traveled nine hours to take the SAT, which is used for college admissions, in Lancaster, Ohio.
“I had a very difficult time. The test was canceled every time I knocked on the door,” said the 16year-old from Midtown, who endured roughly 20 cancellations for both the SAT and ACT over the past six months.
According to Inside Higher Ed, of 402,000 US students registered to take the SATs in August, 178,600 were blocked because testing centers were closed or had limited capacity.
“In New York, the state hardest hit by the pandemic, a mere 15 of their 203 sites are open,” it said.
Students from New York City are traveling as far as Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Arizona and Maine, according to Chris Rim, founder of the education and college consulting firm Command Education.
“It’s crazy,” Rim said.
And getting there doesn’t mean you actually get to take the test.
A couple of months ago, Chekhlov set out for Maryland, only to be notified en route that the exam was off.
One Dalton student flew to Maine early in the summer and found out the SAT was canceled 30 minutes before it was to begin. She still hasn’t taken it.
She hopes to attend the Wharton School at Penn, which Rim, her education consultant, notes is test-optional but not test-blind.
“She will have a disadvantage not having the exam,” Rim said.
Another of Rim’s students flew to “the middle of nowhere in Montana” for the August test because there was “nothing on the East Coast at all.”
Both ACT and the College Board, which oversees the SAT, told The Post that individual testing sites determine cancellations following CDC, state and local guidelines.
“That’s what’s caused some of the 11th-hour deci
sions and gaffes in communication,” said ACT Chief Marketing Officer John Wannemacher.
Although more than half of US colleges reportedly aren’t requiring a standardized test for admission, Amanda Uhry, founder of Manhattan Private School Advisors, still calls the situation “a nightmare.”
“How do you get into Dartmouth [without a SAT score]? You look like a nice person?” she said.
She complained that the test can’t be taken remotely.
“Let the kids take it at home. I know there’s a lot of cheating, but it’s still better than no test, especially if they have no grades from last semester,” she said.
A College Board rep said, “We have asked colleges to extend deadlines for receiving test scores and to equally consider students for admission who are unable to take the test due to COVID-19.”