About 4,000 students who took the SAT last October received test scores that were lower than they should have been -- some by as much as 100 points -- because of technical problems in the scoring process, the College Board said yesterday.

The College Board, which administers the SAT, said it had begun to notify college admissions offices, high school counselors and affected students this week in letters and in e-mail messages, and expected to complete the process by Thursday. It also said that it planned to return registration fees and charges for sending test scores to colleges to the students whose scores were in error.