College entrance exams just got a lot harder — to cheat on.
Spurred by a spiraling cheating scandal at several Long Island high schools, test administrators introduced new security measures today that will change the way students take the critical exams across the world.
Test takers will now have to present photos of themselves at registration that will be placed in a database to be made available to high school and college administrators to help them ferret out discrepancies.
The reforms will also eliminate standby registration and give high school administrators more access to student scores and photographs to identify cheaters.
Test takers will now have to sign documents asserting that they are the person listed on registration materials and will be notified that any attempt to cheat is a prosecutable crime.
“These cheaters stole seats at colleges and potentially scholarship money from honest kids and what they did was criminal,” Nassau DA Kathleen Rice said today. “Those who try to cheat will be caught. A fake ID simply won’t work to game the system anymore.”
A total of 20 people — 5 test takers and 15 clients who hired them — were arrested at several Nassau County schools as part of Rice’s nationally recognized probe.
Current Emory University student Sam Eshaghoff became the poster boy for the scandal after admitting to pocketing several thousand dollars each time he took the test for score hungry clients.
Eshaghoff ridiculed SAT security measures on a cocky “60 Minutes” appearance recently and proclaimed his ability to do it again.
Rice would not comment on the status of the 20 pending criminal cases.