Sometimes it takes us more than one try to get things right, and such was the case for Kamilah Campbell, who scored 900 on her SAT the first time she took it.
The high school senior, who held a 3.1 GPA and wanted to attend Florida State University to major in dance, a skill she already had years of experience in, decided to retake the SAT and give it her all.
According to CNN, her mom got her a tutor, she took online classes and reviewed prep books.
Seven months later, she took the test again, but when results came out, Campbell didn’t get her score, rather she got a letter from the testing company claiming that “based on a preliminary review, there appears to be substantial evidence that your scores … are invalid.”
“Our preliminary concerns are based on substantial agreement between your answers on one or more scored sections of the test and those of other test takers,” the letter continued. “The anomalies noted above raise concerns about the validity of your scores.”
Campbell, who if you’d recall worked hard to boost her score, took offense, feeling that she was being accused of cheating. The teen told
CNN that a representative from the testing company told her that she ended up getting a total score of 1230/1600 from the different sections, although those results were not officially released.
“I did not cheat. I studied, and I focused to achieve my dream,” Campbell said. “I worked so hard and did everything I could do.”
On her side is civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is coincidentally an FSU grad, and got involved on the request of other FSU alums. Crump is helping Campbell as she works through getting The College Board to validate her score so she can be accepted into the dance program at FSU.
Crump also echoed Campbell’s concerns that her score was not validated due to her marked improvement.
“Instead of celebrating her and celebrating her achievement, they are trying to assassinate her character, and we won’t stand for that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zach Goldberg, a spokesperson for The College Board said that a score is never flagged just because of an improvement, but rather can be flagged for various reasons, including similar answers on testing sheets or some sort of incident at the testing site.
