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Military Recruiting and the SAT

"I’m wondering how the military knows I scored well on the SAT."

Listen to this Commentary!

By AJ Herrmann

There is a little known provision in the No Child Left Behind Act which requires public high schools to release student contact information to military recruiters. But is there a link between signing up for the SAT and attracting the interest of the military because of the way the information is distributed? Worried about the prospect of war with Iraq, Youth Radio’s AJ Herrmann decided to investigate, and sent us this story.

A few months ago I got a letter from the United States Army. It said my outstanding performance in school and on the SATs was enough to put me in the running for a spot in West Point’s class of 2007. Within the next few weeks, I got emails or letters from every branch of the military, which amused my mom.

Mom: You’re not the type who wants to lead a lifestyle where you have to constantly follow orders and be like everyone else. To put it in military terms, you like to march to a beat of a different drummer.

I also tend to be pretty curious. For example, I’m wondering how the military knows I scored well on the SAT. Especially since I go to a private school, so we’re not on the recruiters’ standard lists. I asked my principal Carl Tierman if he had any ideas.

Carl Tierman: The school would never send your SAT scores to any organization without your permission. The Educational Testing Services, which administer the SATs, might have a different policy.

Everyone signs up for the SAT through the College Board, so that was my next call.

Operator: Thank you for calling the College Board. This is Sara. How can I help you?

AJ: I’m a high school senior. I took the SAT last May. I’m getting all this stuff in the mail from scholarships and I was wondering who exactly gets that information? Specifically, I’m getting letters from the army and stuff. Do you guys give them to the military and the military academies or not?

Operator: I think the military academies are allowed to request that, yes.

So those military academies can request me when I don’t request them. That’s something few high school students know. If you’ve registered for the SAT, you probably checked the box that says: “Yes, I would like to participate in the Student Search Service and have the College Board send information about me to colleges, universities and governmental scholarship programs interested in students like me.”

And who wouldn’t check that box? Every kid who checks it pictures being recruited by Harvard, Yale and all kinds of schools with big fat scholarships. Not the military and the ROTC, which offers scholarships in exchange for a commitment to service. A year ago, I wouldn’t have cared. But with all this talk of war in Iraq, it freaks me out to realize that by checking a box on the SAT form, I’ve put myself on a list with the US military.

I decided to make another call to the College Board and double check exactly who gets my information.

Operator: Let me check. Hold on alright?

She never came back on the line, which made me nervous. I mean these people know my social security number, along with lots of other personal information. So Youth Radio went right to the top, to the College Board headquarters in Manhattan. We called Executive Director Brian O’Reilly to find out how my name could go from the SAT registration form to the US Air Force ROTC.

Brian O’Reilly: I’m pretty sure the name doesn’t come from us. I can’t absolutely guarantee that because I suppose it could be ordered from a university. But I believe it did not come from us.

So he’s saying when I send my information to a university, they can give it away. And if the ROTC gets the information, does that mean they could pass my name and ID to other parts of the military? When we talked to an ROTC spokesperson Paul Cotatis, he said to think of them like a car company. If you buy an Oldsmobile, chances are some Cadillac sales people will get your name too. But then he refused a taped interview.

So is anyone regulating student privacy and the SAT? We called a watchdog group called Fair Test and talked to a guy named Bob Schaeffer.

Bob Schaeffer: A key issue here is informed consent, and whether students really understand every place their scores are being sent. When they register for the SAT and check the student search service, that becomes an invasion of their privacy and it does not meet the legal definition of informed consent.

It turns out the College Board sells student lists for 25 cents a name if the buyer meets their scholarship guidelines. Buyers can request names of students based on ethnicity, gender, range of SAT score, that kind of thing. The College Board says it tracks the names it releases, but come on, it can’t guarantee privacy once the names are out there at universities all over the country. And they are out there.

And from a teenager’s perspective, it feels to me like the military has learned some tactics from telemarketers. I’m just glad my cell phone company hasn’t given my name to the military. At least not yet. I’m AJ Herrmann

Host Back Announce: That report was produced by Youth Radio.