A localized network compatibility glitch disrupted the August 22 digital SAT for several Cardinal Gibbons High School students testing at host sites across Wake County, North Carolina, Maxwell Corin reports in the student newspaper at the Catholic high school in Raleigh.
While the test ran smoothly in neighboring districts, Gibbons students testing at Wake County public high schools faced technical hurdles ranging from initial connection lockouts reading “Invalid VPN or Proxy” to submission failures at the end of the exam.
At Enloe High School, affected students were turned away entirely, creating heightened anxiety for seniors facing looming fall college application deadlines.
The disruption appears to stem from a conflict between Cardinal Gibbons-managed devices and Wake County’s host network security configurations, rather than a nationwide College Board server failure. Students utilizing their own personal, unmanaged laptops were unaffected, and Gibbons students using their school-issued computers in adjacent districts, such as Orange County’s Chapel Hill High School, reported no disruptions.
Furthermore, students who were swapped to Wake County loaner devices at Fuquay-Varina were able to complete the exam normally.
In the wake of the incident, Enloe High School test proctors filed a formal testing irregularity report with the College Board, which opened an inquiry to determine official makeup dates and fee reimbursements.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Gibbons administration credited affected students’ school billing accounts with $68 to cover registration costs for an upcoming test date, while advising test-takers to bring personal or pre-verified loaner devices to future sittings as an added precaution.
Technology specialists from Cardinal Gibbons and the Wake County Public School System have since collaborated to resolve the underlying network permissions issue.
