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On March 3rd, thousands of high school juniors across Indiana had their SAT test canceled due to technical issues stemming from the application. This caused frustration and anger for many, but some were happy and felt relief.
One of the schools affected was Franklin Community High School. Students rolled in the building, feeling the anticipation of this test, people guessing each other’s scores.
The clock was 7:45 A.M, students settling into their testing room. As the students followed instructions, everything felt normal until they hit a wall. “No connection.” Everyone thought it was a normal error, that would be quickly resolved within a few minutes.
Staff realized that the issue was not with them; the WiFi was stable.
Several minutes go by, with the same message appearing every single attempt. Time ticks by, and information came out by the College Board; there were internal issues with the BlueBook app. There was nothing we could do. Time kept rolling by, with some students doubting whether we’ll be able to take the test.
We continued to sit there helplessly, bored as could be. Rumors started going around that if the test wasn’t working by 9, the test would be cancelled and rescheduled.
8:58 A.M, “Guys, it worked!” A student shouted as the app finally let us through the sign-in. Some students were glad, while others were not pleased with this outcome. We continued the standard operations, as everything seemed to be back to normal.
About 5 minutes into the test, students were dialed in and felt good about their outcome, when staff came over the PA, directing us to cancel any test that had been started.
Everyone got packed up and left the school and had the rest of the day to ourselves.
The upside of this was that students got more time to study and get ready for the test, whenever that would be. When asked about the event, an anonymous junior says, “I was kinda relieved, we just got a free day. Now we have a lot more time to prepare.”
On the other hand, some students were ready to go and hoped to quickly get the test done. “It’s annoying. I wanted to get this test out of the way and over with.” Junior Jackson Smith says.
Rescheduling the SAT is up to individual school districts, but SAT tests must be completed by Friday, March 13th.
