Although the recently reported scoring error on the October 2005 SAT affected the scores of 87 University applicants, it did not change any admissions decisions, Admissions Dean Jack Blackburn said.
According to Blackburn, the error did not affect scores from the other test dates, or the other factors that influence their decision.
"Most of our applicants take the SAT more than once," Blackburn said.
However, Blackburn said the corrections could have an effect on the selection of Rodman and Echols scholars.
The error, which was announced by the College Board last week, had incorrectly reported the scores of around 4,000 students who took the October test.
According to Brian Reilly, executive director of SAT services, the error affected less than one percent of October tests.
In addition, of the 4,000 tests affected, 83 percent of the scores were off by 40 points or less and 95 percent of the scores were off by 100 points or less, O'Reilly said. Considering the margin of error for the test, these differences are small, O'Reilly added.
"It probably had an effect on a small number of cases," O'Reilly said.
According to O'Reilly, the College Board is releasing the corrected score reports for those students whose scores were actually higher, but not for the students whose scores were lower than originally reported.
"It did not seem fair to penalize them at this point for something that was not their fault and that they had no control over," O'Reilly said.
O'Reilly added that the students might have opted to retake the test in November or December had they known their correct scores.
Blackburn said he opposes the College Board's decision to withhold the corrected scores for students whose scores had gone down.
"It's pretty clear in my mind they're unearned scores," Blackburn said. "They are, in fact, putting other students at a disadvantage -- the students whose scores could be higher."
According to O'Reilly, the error was first noticed when some of the affected students made routine requests for hand scoring. It was after hand scoring that the College Board noticed the disparity in scores for the affected tests, O'Reilly said
"The cause, we believe, was some of the answer sheets were moist, which made the paper expand slightly," O'Reilly said.
The scanners that score the tests are so sensitive that they were not able to pick up pencil marks that were slightly off the position of where the correct answer should have been, O'Reilly added.
Blackburn said the announcement of this error did not diminish his faith in the SAT.
"The test has been given millions of times and I don't ever recall scoring errors like this," Blackburn said.
However, Blackburn regretted that the error was announced so late and so close to the time admissions decision time.
"The timing was bad," Blackburn said. "I don't know why it wasn't found earlier."
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