Nearly 200 students who took the SAT at Brooklyn's Packer Collegiate Institute earlier this month had their scores invalidated because some students were seated too closely together during the exam, according to a published report.
The New York Times reports 199 scores were thrown out as a result of an audit of the May 5 exam. A Packer liaison to Educational Testing Service, the company that administers the exam, was told that some of the students had been seated too closely together and that there were other administrative issues.
Students were supposed to be at least four feet apart.
Students who needed the SAT score for their college applications will have to take a new test, according to the Times. The earliest they can retake the test is Saturday, and the next one after that is in June.
Students, parents and administrators were unhappy with the decision and said the test-takers were being punished for a technicality. Packer head Bruce Dennis told the Times, "To do this to 200 kids is unconscionable."
Junior student Maddie Fraser told the paper, "I would never expect to have a four-hour exam I had been preparing for all year not count."
The new test will be administered at no cost. Packer is providing breakfast and transportation on Saturday one of the two schools the makeup test is being given.
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