A cheating scandal prompted the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to temporarily withhold the results of thousands of Chinese and South Korean students who took the SAT test on October 11.

The action comes amid cheating allegations and just days ahead of the deadline set by U.S. colleges and universities for submission of applications. The rest of the students who took the test on October 11 were able to receive their results on Tuesday, the New York Times (NYT) detailed.

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ETS spokesperson Tom Ewing explained that they are withholding the results based on the country where the students lived and not the site of the test. In China, there are only a handful of private schools that administer the exam, and thousands of students have to fly to other Asian countries just to take the SAT.

The ETS, which conducts SAT tests worldwide, released a statement saying they acted on a "reliable information" passed on to them. The intel talked of some organizations which were obtaining test materials illegally to gain profit, but this effort only backfired on the students, EST added.

The College Board is the one that creates the tests. It hires the testing service for the secure administration of the tests in other countries, the report explained.

In the past, there have been reports about individuals in East Asia who got a hold of the test questions ahead of the examination and shared the content with others. The situation was reportedly rampant in test preparation schools.

In May 2013, the testing service cancelled the SAT test in South Korea because of the report. In 2007, the company also voided 900 scores from the same country in response to the cheating issue.

Ewing said they would launch a probe into the cheating allegations and that they expect to release the results by mid-November. The deadline for college application is usually around November and universities usually send their feedback by mid-December, the report stated.

However, there are some students who took to College Confidential, an online discussion board, their apprehension about the delay meddling with their chance of being admitted. There were also those who said they felt the EST's move to withhold their SAT scores was a form of unfair treatment.

Tagseducation, Standardized tests, Evaluation, Educational Testing Service, SAT