The 153 students who took the SAT at Naperville North High School in early May have been sharpening their No. 2 pencils and reliving the angst of college entrance exam preparation after learning that their answer sheets had been lost.
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But their summer break restarted Tuesday with news that ETS, the nonprofit institution that administers the SAT, found the missing papers. Now the students don’t have to retake the test.
“I wish they could’ve found them sooner, but I’m not complaining,” said Kristina Dakis, 17, who had been in SAT limbo. “I’ve very relieved, extremely relieved.”
Many test-takers, most of whom attend Naperville District 203 schools, had taken prep classes, pored over study guides or used computer software to prepare, in the hopes of impressing admissions officers at the colleges of their dreams.
Selin Motan, 16, said that after not finding her scores online in early June, she started to hear rumors that something had gone awry. Then she and others received a letter saying the score sheets were lost.
Traditionally, the test booklets are sent to ETS in New Jersey and the answer sheets to a test-scoring service in Austin, Texas, said ETS officials. But this year both the booklets and the answer sheets from Naperville North went to the warehouse in New Jersey.
Ross Truemper, Naperville North’s principal, said administrators seal the tests and answer sheets in packages provided and pre-labeled by ETS.
ETS spokesman Tom Ewing said the mix-up is being investigated.
The answer sheets were found Tuesday among thousands of boxes of testing materials at the warehouse. For the June SAT alone, ETS received between 75,000 and 100,000 boxes of testing materials, Ewing said.
While the situation ended happily, there was plenty of tension for a while. “I cannot understand how anyone can lose something as important as an SAT exam,” Dakis said.
Pointing to all the security precautions taken before and during the exam, she said, “I would think people would guard it with their lives.”
Mike Jermann, 17, celebrated when he finished the initial test, figuring that “I’ll never have to take [the] SAT again.”
He was dreading a retake.
“I hadn’t thought about math for a whole month,” Jermann said.
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