Of the four largest universities in Florida, the University of Central Florida stands alone in its method of distributing Scantrons.
While Florida State University, the University of Florida, and the University of South Florida all have their professors provide Scantrons for the students on test days, UCF requires students to acquire Scantrons on their own accord. UCF students have the choice to either receive one free Scantron per day from the Student Government Association’s office, or they may choose to buy a pack of Scantrons from either the bookstore or from certain vending machines around campus.
Many students at UCF take advantage of the one free Scantron per day that SGA offers. To avoid the inevitable long line of students outside of the SGA office on test day, some students, like William Harding, a freshman at UCF majoring in Aerospace Engineering, choose to stock up on Scantrons in the upcoming weeks before the tests hit.
“I like going once a day and being able to get a Scantron. I have a stockpile of them so it works fine for me,” Harding said.
While these students are able to plan ahead, some students with less time on their hands find that going to the Student Union to pick up a Scantron before a test can be more inconvenient than not.
These students, like freshman Nursing major Quatia Jenkins, would prefer the distribution methods of the other major universities in Florida.
“It would be a lot easier than people forgetting or having to wait in these lines,” Jenkins said.
Both Jenkins and Harding pointed out how some students who stockpile Scantrons turn around and sell these Scantrons to students who do not want to wait in the line at the SGA office. This strategy may have been the reason for Scantron shortages at UCF in 2009. However, with the method used at these other universities, each student would receive one Scantron per test, assuring that no extra Scantrons were wasted.
SGA at UCF currently spends about $25,000 annually on Scantrons. Students who take advantage of just one free scantron have already received the amount that they paid for in tuition. Alex Perna, the Director of Communications for the Student Government Association, says that SGA’s goal is to make the Scantron distribution process more convenient for students .
“SGA took the initiative to get these Scantrons for the students and give them to them,” Perna said.
While the current method of Scantron distribution at UCF is not the most economical method, Perna says that SGA is trying their best to make sure that students do not take advantage of the free Scantron benefit that SGA offers.
“We’re trying to be as fiscally responsible as we can with the Scantrons,” Perna said. “We don’t want a student coming in and getting as many as the can in one day.”
Most students, like Sophomore Psychology major Kayla Kelley, say that they have no issue with the current method of distributing Scantrons at UCF, but they would be open to a change that would mimic the methods of other schools.
“It would be a lot more convenient if they handed it out to us,” Kelly said.
She referred to how her biology professor requires them to turn in seven Scantrons at the beginning of the semester so that they won’t have to worry about going to get one on test day. She would be open to more professors doing this as well.
Camila Cymring, a Junior majoring in Advertising and Public Relations, said that she had no idea there were other methods of distributing Scantrons at other schools, but now that she knows about them she would love for UCF to have a similar process.
“I would obviously love it because it would be easier and cheaper,” Cymring said. “But I have faith in the school that they’re doing what needs to be done.”
UCF students who need Scantrons for their finals this week can expect to wait in lines outside of the SGA office to receive their free Scantron.
