SAT, ACT cheats face no penalty

"Their position is thoroughly unaccountable and promotes unethical conduct," said Michael Josephson, president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics. "What they're basically saying is 'Try it. You have nothing to lose.' Why not say to someone who robbed a 7-Eleven, 'Please give back the merchandise or pay for it, but we don't want you to feel bad about stealing.' "

He argued that the stakes are much higher than just invalidated test scores. With students spending hours preparing for the exams and their parents paying for tutoring, the exams remain important factors in college admission, even though some colleges have stopped requiring them.

"If you put up for auction a guaranteed spot into Harvard or UCLA, people would pay tons of money -- that's how much they're stealing when they falsely get a place they don't deserve," Josephson said.

According to the two companies, cheating on the tests is relatively rare and prompts only about 2,000 investigations on average out of the more than 3 million tests administered each year. Most cheating accusations come from students or exam proctors and typically involve a student copying from another's exam.

In a recent high-profile case of cheating on Advanced Placement exams at Orange County's Trabuco Hills High School, students came forward to alert test officials to the use of cellphones and other irregularities. Ten students acknowledged cheating, but the school is catching heat for not providing adequate supervision.

And many students and parents are angry with the ETS and College Board for deciding to cancel the scores of all 385 test takers.

Students can cancel SAT or ACT scores for any reason. If the agency challenges a score, students can retake the test -- usually without charge -- in a more controlled setting, provide information to explain why the original score is accurate, or retake the exam the next time it is given.

Some high schools act on their own to punish students whose scores have been canceled, sometimes with suspensions if they admit to cheating.

But the head of the private Los Angeles school whose students were identified as being under investigation by the ACT said he was unaware of the incident and when he heard about it and contacted the company, officials there would not confirm it. The school is not being identified because there is no proof of wrongdoing by its students.