Colleges also may question students whose scores have been canceled. With 50,000 applications each year, UCLA receives only a handful of SAT or ACT score cancellations, Admissions Director Vu Tran said.
"When we receive notification from the ACT or SAT, the first thing we do is check to see if the student will admit to cheating," he said. "We give the students all due process. But, of course, if the [agency] was specific and spelled it out, it would be a lot easier."
Cheating on high school and college campuses is not uncommon. A survey by the Josephson Institute, for example, found that 60% of high schoolers reported cheating on an exam during the preceding year.
Donald L. McCabe, a Rutgers University professor who has studied cheating, said college-bound students perceive that because of the use of proctors and seating arrangements, fraud on the SAT is difficult -- although many say they would try if they thought they could get away with it.
McCabe said the test companies may be reluctant to take action against cheaters because they fear being sued. But Ewing said that was not so.
"We could stand behind whatever investigative results we come up with," he said. "We've had instances of students taking us to court, and we have prevailed. For us, it's all about the confidentiality."
Students taking the two tests sign confidentiality agreements and promise not to misbehave, but most are unaware of the testing agencies' policies -- and most professional tutors are not eager to let them know.
"I've known about this for 25 years but did not believe it served anybody's interest to be told there were no consequences for cheating on tests," said Paul Kanarek, president of the Princeton Review of Southern California. "It's not the right ethical message to send."
For some critics, the issue is not cheating but the imbalance of power between the test agencies and students. Students must put in time and effort to retake tests and those who are cleared of cheating may nevertheless remain suspect.
"The test giver investigates, prosecutes, judges and acts as jury and can withhold test scores," said Robert Schaeffer, public education director at FairTest, a Massachusetts-based group that promotes fair and open testing. "There's no way to be sure who's right." --
carla.rivera@latimes.com
