College and SATs

College Board Tests Limits of Patience--and Credit

By Janet Eastman

Tuesday January 2, 2001

I ALWAYS knew my son, Eric, would go to college. Why else would I have posed him in a tiny Yale sweatshirt when he was still in the "cookie good" stage of his life?

I knew it would take work and sacrifice as well as late-night hot cocoa boosts to help him earn the grades he needed to get into the college of his dreams in the fall of 2001.

And I knew it would require money, lots of it, for tuition, books, room and board. I even budgeted for college application fees and trips to check out a few of the campuses.

I saved for college. Foolishly, I didn't save for the College Board. The what? you ask. Exactly.

The College Board is as well-known to the average person as the laws of planetary motion. Simply stated, the board controls the standardized admission tests that 2 million college-bound students take each year. Most common of these tests is the SAT, perhaps the single most important score used to judge acceptance and, often, scholarship eligibility.

If the College Board weren't 100 years old, I'd suspect Bill Gates invented this monopoly. It rakes in $300 million a year by collecting test-registration fees, selling books on how to prepare for the tests and gathering membership dues from thousands of schools and educational associations. It hands most of that bundle to the Educational Testing Service, the organization it contracts to design and administer its exams.

My contribution to the nonprofit College Board: $479. I racked up almost enough frequent-flier points on my Miles One Visa to take the red-eye to College Board headquarters in Manhattan and beg them to add multiple choices to their fee schedule: A) pay willingly; B) pay with protest; C) pay? no way.

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How did my son's test expenses hit this peak? Here's a quick accounting:

As a sophomore, he took the preliminary test known as the PSAT, which cost a reasonable $9.50, and the Advanced Placement test for biology, a shocking $77. As a junior, he took the PSAT again, which colleges and the National Merit Scholarship organization use to identify top students ($9.50) as well as taking the American history AP test ($77). Since he passed both AP exams, he earned college credit. And results of the PSATs got him noticed by a few schools. So far, no complaints.

Hold your Scantron. I spoke too soon.

Last year, Eric encountered the board's mother lode: the ultra-important SAT and SAT II. He took the SAT II for biology in May ($19 registration) and the SAT in October ($60 to sign up by phone and have score reports sent to four extra schools).

Instead of waiting weeks for a printed report to come in the mail, he called the board's "have-your-credit-card-ready" automated phone line to hear his scores ($13).

In November, he took the SAT II writing and math tests ($66) and again paid $13 to hear his score early to determine if he should retake it. Turns out, his 103-degree fever and bronchitis didn't help his concentration during the two-hour exam. He needed to devote another Saturday morning to finding the right answers among hundreds of choices.

Fortunately, he had already signed up for the December SAT ($60) and avoided the late fee ($15). But it would cost $15 to change the registration to the SAT II, and he added another exam: the one for American history ($6).

On Dec. 2, Eric laid down his No. 2 pencil after completing his final board brain-blower and I had visions of redirecting my Visa toward more entertaining expenses.

Wrong.

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Seems certain private colleges--Stanford, USC, Columbia--require a financial aid report, the CSS, which is a service provided by--you guessed it--the College Board. The UCs and public schools ask for the FAFSA, which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid (note the first word). The CSS, an acronym for Constantly Surrendering Savings--just kidding, College Scholarship Service--is $6 to file and $16 for each report sent to a college or scholarship program. Eric's cost: $54.

His total tab is probably above average, but still low compared with the extreme achievers who take even more PSATs, SATs, SAT IIs, APs--there are 33 AP tests alone--and who apply to many elite colleges.

The board also administers a CLEP--College Level Examination Program--for $46 that somehow we overlooked in our shopping spree.

If Eric had forgotten to list a college that needed his score report, he would have been dinged a $10 "archived score" retrieval fee on top of the $6.50 report fee. Had he not been so organized, rush charges would have piled on at $10 to $20 a pop.

And then there are the board's products. Buying books such as "10 Real SATs" ($18.95) and the CD-ROM "One-on-One With the SAT" ($29.95) would have also ticked up the total.

So I'm grateful. The cost could have been much more. It could have been $56 less, too, had I known that he should have paid for score reports to be released only on the last test since previous scores are also sent. I challenge anyone to find that information easily on the board's Web site (http://www.collegeboard.com) or in its printed literature. One helpful spokesman for the College Board told me that everything is "clearly stated on the 38-page legal document, the Registration Bulletin, that your son should have brought home." Sadly, I never saw it.

I also spent $20 to use the automated phone service rather than going online.

The good news: I think we're near the end of our dance with the College Board. And I'm optimistic that Eric will end up at the college just right for him, where, if all goes well, he'll major in business and go on to head a company that gives the College Board a run for its money.

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