SAT Season is Here–Beware

Many school districts in the state administer the SAT. Check your school and district calendars for SAT administration dates if it is administered at your local high schools.

Unwittingly, the majority of students provide personal information to the College Board that they don’t need to provide. It is supposed to be voluntary but students may not realize that or they don’t give any thought to what may be done with the information they provide. It is possible they are duped into providing this information.

Students may be asked to provide their social security number, religious affiliation, citizenship, family income, ethnicity, and other information that is not required in order to take the test.

The College Board eventually sells the student data they collect.

For more information read the Washington Post’s What your child needs to know before taking the SAT and ACT. This also on the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy website.

I wonder if school administrators and school board members really know what information students are being asked to provide. If they really knew and cared, I would hope they would do something to stop this practice of data collection and protect student privacy. I wonder if taxpayers would support the administration of these tests in our schools if they knew the extent of the data being collected and that the College Board sells it.

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy has a SAT Pre-Test checklist.

1. On Thursday or Friday, talk to your children about the importance of providing only the personal information necessary to take the test, and show them the SAT’s Student Search Service ™ screenshot below so they know what it might look like and which box to select (No, thanks.);
2. Encourage them to go to bed early Friday night, get plenty of rest, and set the alarm (AM, not PM!);
3. Serve a nutritious breakfast Saturday morning to your children and remind them to bring a photo ID, the “admission ticket,” NO. 2 pencils and an acceptable calculator from the College Board’s Test Day checklist;
4. Remind them NOT to volunteer any personal information other than what is required like name, address, school, date of birth, etc., and that there is no reason to offer up their Social Security number, religious affiliation, family income, or other extraneous information. They should also CHECK the “No, thanks” box if there is one in the Student Search Service ™ section.
5. Reassure them to relax and just do their best on the exam itself.

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy also has Five Principles to Protect Student Privacy that you may want to become familiar with.