One would think that getting

out of a test on a Saturday would be a good thing, but it wasn't.

Close to 80 students from around the Southern Crescent headed to Fayette

County High School last Saturday morning to take the SAT. They were turned

away.

Rumors floated around as to

the reasons the test was cancelled, but according to ETS, the Educational

Testing Service, it was simply a case of miscommunication between ETS

and the person who would be administering the test.

According to Tom Ewing, the

media relations person for ETS, originally there was not supposed to be

a test scheduled for Saturday. ETS then realized that there was to be

a test but this message did not reach the local person who would run the

test. Ewing expressed apologies to the students on behalf of ETS and said

he realized that it was a great inconvenience.

It is a little more than an

inconvenience though. Many of the students who were planning on taking

the SAT last week needed the test to get early admissions into college

as well as for scholarship applications. Dr. Charles Warr, principal of

Fayette County High School, is working with ETS to establish a retest

before the Nov. 1 deadline that most schools require for early admissions.

As it stands, the next test will be Nov. 8 and, according to Melinda Berry

Dreisbach, public information specialist for the Fayette County Board

of Education, ETS will count the test as if it were taken in November.

This will help students applying for scholarships but will not help students

trying to get early admissions.

If, and when, a retest date

is announced for October, The Citizen will publish it both in the paper

and on the web site, www.thecitizennews.com.