Local Students' ACT Exams Lost
By Matt Rivers
UPPER DARBY, Pa., (CBS) – They took their ACT exams, but now those exams have vanished.
As Eyewitness News reporter Matt Rivers tells us, nearly 200 students who took the tests in Upper Darby are now scoreless.
"I have nothing to send them which means I don't meet the requirements for the school," said Merion Station senior Eli Badgio.
By them, Badgio means the University of Virginia. He wanted to apply early, and the deadline is November 1st. So he took the ACT exam on September 13th at Upper Darby High School. Weeks went by, but no scores came.
"Not only was it nerve-wracking, it was agitating," Badgio said.
That same waiting game was being played by Jonathan Shub. His daughter took the test the same day as Eli and she never got her scores either. So they called the ACT organization three times. He says their response didn't help.
"There was a one percent that had still not been graded. They didn't say anything about whether they were lost," Jonathan Shub said.
In fact, it wasn't until yesterday that officials admitted the tests were missing.
So what exactly happened here? Eyewitness News asked ACT officials. They say they know the tests made it from the high school all the way to a local post office, but from there it's anyone's guess. Officials say they never received the exams at their headquarters in Iowa.
A company spokesman says officials knew of the problem for weeks, but chose not to release the information. They hoped the tests would still show up, and didn't want to cause a panic. But Eli Badgio says he would have signed up for another test had he known of a problem. He hopes the University of Virginia will understand but:
"It's just such a complicated process they might just not want to deal with it and it worries me that it might hinder me getting in," Badgio said.
ACT officials did apologize saying the incident is rare, but that they will be evaluating how the situation was handled. That does little, though, for those affected now.
"Mistakes happen. But the cover-up here, which is what it's been, is unforgivable," Shub said.
The ACT organization tells Eyewitness News it will hold another test free of charge for the students affected, but no date has been set.
It will also give those students letters they can give to universities, notifying them of the problem.
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