For 47 cents, the College Board will sell your child’s SAT test scores.

Their buyers are expensive, exclusive colleges and universities that aim to recruit your son or daughter if their scores are high.

They use recruiting pitches to boost their national rankings and reputation by showing data that they are more selective.

They do that by rejecting more applicants, even if those students never stood a chance of admission.

Your child, in effect, became an unknowing pawn.

The College Board, the nonprofit SAT owner, supposedly designed the tests to level the college-admissions playing field. But the board is using the SAT to sell test-takers’ names and personal information to universities.

That has helped schools inflate their applicant pools and rejection rates.

Rejection rates lift the perception of exclusivity that colleges are eager to gain, pushing students to invest more time and money in preparing for and retaking exams the board sells, a Wall Street Journal investigation uncovered.

Colleges defend themselves by saying the data helps them reach a diverse pool of students they might have otherwise missed.

“The top 10% don’t need to do this,” said Terry Cowdrey, a former Vanderbilt University dean of admissions. “They buy students’ names who don’t have a chance of getting in.

“They do it to increase the number of applications. You’ve got to keep getting your denominator up for your admit rate.”

The admissions scandal hasn’t dented the SAT’s popularity over its main competitor, the ACT.

More students taking the SAT, means more data College Board has to sell schools.