"Faked" placement scores from native speakers

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues:

I suspect that as long as universities rely on an "honor system" when giving 
placement  tests to high-school seniors, there will be some danger of faked 
low placement scores.  (Russian-born youngsters,  native speakers of Russian, 
may try to score very low, hoping to be placed in university sections of "Russian 
101," the lowest elementary level.) Their motivation for faking a low score would 
be to get an "easy A+" at the lowest university level,  without doing much work.  
That  in turn can have the unfortunate side-effect of discouraging the traditional 
students (native speakers of English), who enrolled in that same "101" section 
and find it impossible to compete with the "fakers."

One way to try to deal with this problem, probably well known to most of our 
colleagues, is for the admissions office of the US university to note in its 
transcript records the place of birth and the age at which the newly-admitted 
"heritage learner" entered the US (if so indicated).  Thus having identified those 
students who had spent a number of years in the Russian school system, the 
university can notify the newly-admitted heritage learners that if they enroll in 
"Russ. 101" or "103," etc.,  they WILL RECEIVE NO UNIVERSITY CREDIT  (even if 
they  get an easy A+).  It would  be hoped that potential "fakers" would thus 
be motivated to enroll directly in ADVANCED levels (e.g., 200- or 300- or 400-
level), i.e., the lowest level at which they CAN receive university credit.

The same approach could apply, for example, to Latin-American  immigrants, 
presumably native speakers of Spanish, who should not be eligible to receive 
any university credit for going back and taking "Span. 101 or 103," etc.   Or, 
say, a mature 28-year-old freshman enrollee in "ROTC 101" (elementary military 
officers training), whose transcript records would reveal that he/she had served 
10 years (age 18-28) on active military duty, as high-ranked as 1st  lieutenant  
-- and thus should not be eligible to receive any credit for going back and 
taking ROTC 101 or 103, etc.   

No panacea, but it might help.... -- Steven P Hill, University of Illinois.  
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