How does the Writing Skills test fit in? (News)

News & Commentary

12/07/05 - The Wall Street Journal reports that many colleges are ignoring the Writing Test on the NEW SAT.

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Summary
There appears to be a wide diversity among colleges' use of the new Writing Skills subject area on the SAT.

Some schools such as U. of Chicago, Ohio State, and MIT are completely dismissing the new subject area. Other schools, such as Harvard, UVA and Stanford, are openly integrating the new writing skills section into their admissions decisions.

Kaplan Inc. surveyed 374 colleges and found that:
    47% Omitting Writing Test completely
    22% Assigning lower weight to the Writing Test than
           other SAT subject areas (Math & Critical Reading)

Accordingly, this year and depending on the school there may be significant reasons to discount the importance of the Writing Skills subject area.

The reason for colleges' disinclination to incorporate the Writing Skills subject area into admissions decisions is that it is unclear what the score really means. Composing and writing an essay in 25 minutes is a very different assignment than the typical college assignment of a take-home essay that is due the following week or even farther out in the future. Many also question the predictive validity of the writing skills score since it has been given to test takers for less than a year.

Another reason why colleges are skeptical about the writing skills score is that they already know that it is coachable so it will tend to exacerbate already existing socioeconomic inequities.

Finally, some admissions officials are concerned about the disparate grading of the essays. Although the College Board provided training for the essay graders, a high level of standardization in grading has yet to be achieved.

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