Community College Placement Tests

My daughter took some placement tests last week, and I found out some info that you and the mentors might find interesting. 

It appears that the placement tests for community colleges all have their own interpretation of cut scores. The test is the same for PCC, Clackamas Community College, and Chemeketa, the ACT Compass, but each college can pick their own cut scores. 

So a student can score at Math 20(general math) at one school, and Math 70 (Intro to Algebra) at another. And score into Reading 90 and Writing 90 or into RD 115 and WR 115 with the same score at different schools. This also is true for scoring out of taking these courses. 

So by shopping around at different community colleges, you can save a few thousand dollars in tuition and a whole lot of time sitting in classrooms taking classes that really might not be necessary. I couldn't believe the differences in the math cut scores especially. How can one college math department interpret a score as putting you at a general math level and another at algebra. The general math is two math classes below the other. So arbitrary. 

For instance, a student can score two points below a certain Reading level at PCC but score two points above that level on the same reading test at Chemeketa.