Students’ Tests Vanish in the Mail : Education: The disappearance of Poway students’ advanced placement examinations puts a serious crimp in college planning for those whose scores were affected.

About 170 hard-studying Poway High School students, hoping to know by now whether they have gained advanced placement in college and high school courses this fall, are instead frustrated and angry. Tests they took have disappeared, apparently lost in the mail.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Mike Averill, whose son, Ryan, is bound for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and had his physics test lost. “These kids went to a tremendous amount of effort for these tests.”

From May 6 to 19, the students took Advanced Placement tests in such subjects as U.S. history, chemistry, English literature, European history, calculus, physics, Spanish, French and German. A high school counselor packed up the tests in four boxes, affixed a business reply address label to the test-processing company, Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J., and sent them off by first-class mail. Witnesses saw the four boxes get put on a Post Office truck.

But only one of the boxes arrived at its destination.

Ray Nicosia, an ETS spokesman, said the company received most of the students’ essay tests, but is missing most of their multiple choice exams.

Consequently, the company is offering the students three options, Nicosia said. Educational Testing Service will project a student’s grade, if possible, based on the student’s performance on those portions of the test that were received. Or, if a student is unsatisfied with or unable to take advantage of that option, the company is offering either a refund of the $65 test fee, or an opportunity to be retested at no charge the week of July 27.

The options are little consolation for students who worked for months to prepare for the exams. They and their parents are angry that Educational Testing Service stipulated that the tests be returned by first-class mail, rather than by a courier service or certified mail that could have traced the tests’ whereabouts.

“The ETS procedures for shipping these tests are inexcusably negligent,” said Michael Crowley, whose son, Ryan, will be attending UC Riverside this fall, majoring in biomedical sciences. Three of Ryan’s tests--in calculus, physics and English--were lost. Crowley’s daughter, a high-school sophomore, also had a portion of her European history test lost.

But Nicosia defended the practice, noting that, of 580,000 exams sent to the company this year, fewer than 500 were lost. Four other high schools in the country also had problems getting their tests to the company, but their losses were in “double figures,” he said.

“As the record indicates,” Nicosia said, “our procedures have worked well. . . . We’re trying to take swift action to remedy the problem.”

In the meantime, many of the college-bound students are feeling the pinch of having to meet their schools’ registration requirements.

“A lot of students are kind of in a scheduling limbo now for college,” Ryan Crowley said. “Especially those whose test scores are used for placement in courses for math and English and some of the sciences.”

Cyndi Sanborn, who has enrolled as a psychology major at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, said the school requires her to submit her Advanced Placement scores by July 13 or she cannot sign up for an advanced English class. At this point, she’s not sure what to do.

“I can either register for a lower English class, which i don’t feel I belong in, or I can put it off,” Sanborn said. “If I retake the test, then I’m going to lose wages at work, which I need to pay for school. Or, I can have my projected score reported, which I don’t want.

“I’m just afraid I’m going to fall behind,” she said. “I don’t have the time or the money to fall behind.”

The Poway Unified School District is responding by providing teachers to tutor the students in preparation for the retests, said Yvonne Lux, assistant superintendent for learning support services.

But parents and students say the retest is unfair to the students. Instead of having weeks to drill and study and mentally prepare for the exams, they will have only a couple of weeks at a time when most have summer jobs.

“When you talk to all the kids, especially the ones who took the physics test, this is something they really had to study long and hard for,” said Averill, whose son lost all of his physics test and stands to lose a quarter of college credit. “To get back to the level they were in . . . you’re not going to do it in a week or two of tutoring.

“How are these kids who took three and four tests going to be able to take off time to study for them?”

From the 170 students, 257 exams were submitted. Of those, Nicosia said, 102 students had one exam affected, 50 students had two exams affected, 17 students had three exams affected and one student had four tests affected.

Carla Ferri, the University of California’s director of undergraduate admissions, said she has talked with officials at Educational Testing Service and is “comfortable” with the grade projections the company will attempt to make on the partial tests.

“My assumption here is that, based on our experience with ETS, if they are planning to project a test score, that means that they are able to do so based on what would be a substantial portion of the test,” she said.