How Colleges are Using New SAT Essay

Parents Forum
1

<p>What I find interesting is:

  1. Colleges may compare the essay to the student’s application essay. This may end up weeding out a lot of students who have been cheating by having their essays professionally written.</p>

<li>While other postings have quoted College Board as saying that errors of fact will not hurt essay’s scores, colleges probably will not be that charitable if they see students doing things like writing that “Anna Karenina” is a comedy, as occurred in a high scoring essay quoted in a story posted last week on this site. </li>
</ol>

<p>May 15 New York Times:
"Three years after the College Board increased students’ anxieties with its decision to add a handwritten essay to the SAT, and three months after the test made its debut, many universities are still grappling with how, when and even if they will use the new scores.</p>

<p>So far, less than half of the nation’s colleges and universities have said they will require next year’s applicants to submit writing scores. It remains an open question, however, whether they will give the essay scores as much weight as those on the reading and math sections. </p>

<p>Institutions may also decide to compare an applicant’s SAT essay with the application essay, which are typically more polished. </p>

<p>'We know of 429 out of about 1,600 four-year colleges that have said they’re going to require the writing test, but many of them are taking a wait-and-see attitude about using the scores in admissions, and that makes sense," said Brian O’Reilly, a College Board official. </p>

<p>The College Board itself is sounding a note of caution about using the first round of scores.</p>

<p>“We have never recommended that schools use it in admissions decisions right away,” said Chiara Coletti, a College Board spokeswoman. “Since this is a new test, it makes sense to be careful in how it’s used the first year…’”
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/education/15SAT.html?ex=1117080000&en=1063d85289f4f8a6&ei=5070&pagewanted=print[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/education/15SAT.html?ex=1117080000&en=1063d85289f4f8a6&ei=5070&pagewanted=print</a></p>

2

<p>I can't imagine schools that receive thousands of applications will be comparing SAT essays to application essays, or even, for that matter, reading the SAT essays at all.</p>

3

<p>I doubt that this will happen at most state universities, which are mainly numbers-driven anyway. I can imagine, though, that top LACs and HPYS will do this -- particularly when students' scores don't match their application essays'.</p>

<p>I also can imagine that many colleges will look at the essays of students who are on the bubble.</p>

4

<p>The Adcoms won't be able to compare the SAT essays with the application essays because the Adcoms don't have access to the actual SAT essays. The SAT essays belong to the College Board. The Adcoms will only be able to see the SAT essay scores - that's all.</p>

5

<p>Aussie, that's not true. From the NY Times article cited above:</p>

<p>"The College Board is putting unbelievable pressure on its members to require a writing test," said Bruce Poch, dean of admissions at Pomona. "But I wanted to leave a little breathing room for kids from schools that don't teach writing."</p>

<p>The main advantage of the new writing test, Mr. Poch said, is that it lets colleges read a sample of an applicant's unaided writing.</p>

<p>"We'll use the new writing score the way we used the SAT II writing scores, but now we can download the essays, read them and see what we think of them and whether our reading is in line with the College Board's score," Mr. Poch said."</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
"We'll use the new writing score the way we used the SAT II writing scores, but now we can download the essays, read them and see what we think of them and whether our reading is in line with the College Board's score," Mr. Poch said."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I wonder how they're going to UPload all those handwritten essays? Sounds technically unfeasible.</p>

<p>I still think that NSM's comment re comparison could apply in concept; for example a kid with a professional level personal essay who scores low in the writing portion may raise red flags.</p>

7

<p>You're raising the questions that I've wondered about - how logistically will harvard and Yale (for example) handle all those essays. I think Momrath has the idea - they won't read everybody's, just certain select people with red flags or who are on the cusp of a decision. I can also see how the use of this essay may change over time, as the admissions office learn where it best "fits" in their process - and learn how to manage the extra paper.
If CB "uploads" them the way progress notes are scanned into the medical record storage here, it may not be very easy for the adcoms to pull them up and read them on the computer - more incentive to do it only when necessary.</p>

8

<p>Uploading the essays won't be that much of a problem. Since the essays are in digital form for grading, it is only a matter to keep the appropriate essay with the electronic file of the student. </p>

<p>The real question is what adcoms will do with the essay. If our information is correct, most adcoms receive "sanitized" files that have been cleaned by technicians. For instance, and again based on consensus, the SAT grades are typically entered to comply with the school criteria. It could be highest individual scores, best one-time sitting, or any other variation. </p>

<p>Consider the HUGE number of applications, do we really believe that schools will increase their workload -and cost- to add the new essays. Considering the INSIGNICANCE and IRRELEVANCE of the exercise, I am pretty convinced that, after a very small level of curiousity, the adcoms will be SICKENED by the quality of what is offered. Again, haven't we heard reports of adcoms on how they spend a few seconds glancing at essays in hope to find ONE worth reading. To get there, they have to read piles of vapid essays that could serve as a potent valium substitute. Add the fact that the essays are handwritten, and the exercise would become pure mental torture. </p>

<p>The sad reality is that the 25-minute essay is an exercise of futility that serves little -if any- purpose. I do not believe -for a second- that the essay would raise a series of red flag. There is no validity whatsover in comparing the SAT essay with the personal statements. Will the school require to see a personal statement written in twenty five minutes or first drafts only. The current essays that form an application are EXPECTED to be polished and ARE expected to have been edited. If the schools wanted to see the work of students, they could have asked for a GRADED high school essay written in class. After all, if they trust the judgment of GC and teachers to write the ever so important recommendation letters, why would they NOT trust the schools? If it was important to "frame" the quality of the schools in the context of US High Schools, the College Board would have had few logistical problems in compiling presenting data about the AP/SAT2 performance of each school. Obviously, the problem is that the cost of this would have had to be passed on the real customers of TCB -the colleges- in a departure from the norm to charge the test takers. </p>

<p>The decision by the College Board leaves a great number of victims and only a few victors: the ego of the bombastic and misguided Richard Atkinson who was royally outsmarted by a cynical Gaston Caperton; the College Board itself that saw the use of one of its subject tests multiplied five to ten-fold; the fortunes of the UK-based Pearson; a few test preparation experts, and, finally, the wallets of a horde of test graders whose qualifications -high school teachers- might be dubious at best. </p>

<p>The essay is a joke ... it is a joke to write and a joke to grade. The joke would, however, be funnier if it did not cost millions of dollars, and was not played on millions of unsuspecting students as well as on thousands of overworked and overburdened admissions' offices.</p>

<p>PS FWIW, this is my FIRST criticism ever of The College Board.</p>

9

<p>If they really wanted to compare essays, they could go back to what we did in the 60s, and have us write a one-hour essay as part of the SAT which was UNGRADED and sent on to the colleges. Personally, I don't see anything more arbitrary about the writing exam than the rest of the SAT.</p>

<p>But this is just an interim change. Remember, the only reason there was any change at all was so that the CollegeBoard wouldn't lose its biggest customer (the UCal system.) If the UCal system decides they don't like it, we'll see major changes again.</p>

10

<p>Mini, do you REALLY believe that the role of the UC was that important? </p>

<p>Atkinson was indeed a large customer of the SAT. However, he never considered abandoning the SAT ... he wanted to expand the SAT Subject tests. Originally, Caperton flew to California to defend the SAT but quickly saw the golden opportunity that Atkinson was foolishly offering him on a silver platter: an expanded and more expensive SAT that would not only cover California but the entire world. </p>

<p>Some writers -the same writers who are still unable to get the name of the test correct after years- insist on repeating the same trite story that the revenues generated in California were VITAL to the College Board. Even on an abacus, most everyone could figure out how much gross and net profit is derived from the SAT in California. It represents a SMALL fraction of the $400 million of revenues of The College Board. Losing the revenues from processing the financial aid documents or losing the AP tests would have a much larger impact on their balance sheet. While The College Board and ETS would hate to lose the SAT teat, their survival does not depend from that single test. Checking the remaining services they offer and comparing the stream of revenues that are foreign to the SAT would be revealing. </p>

<p>As far as changes, how could the UC decide they do not like the new test, after showing so much pride in having been the apostles of change? If you were to scratch the surface a bit, you find that the stories about the UC are ... dubious. Was the UC really disenchanted with the poor predictability of the SAT ... or facing the more pressing issue that the attempt to find an racial and social distribution was a colossal failure. Was Atkinson's displeasure with the SAT not prompted by the dwindling numbers of minorities that resulted from political and legal changes? Were the famous "predictors" report not included AFTER Atkinson wrote his first diatribe that languished in his drawer for one year?</p>

<p>Well, there is always the story that everything was set in motion when Atkinson saw his granddaughter memorizing SAT vocabulary to his great dismay! Pick the one you like .. they all share the same validity!</p>

11

<p>I think if I were an admissions officer, I would do a little test to see if the scores of a sample of essays received had any correlation with the essays themselves - in the opinion of the knowledgable folks at my college.</p>

12

<p>since the essays are already online (and available for each student to see under scores), it would be simple to send a dvd or other such medium to each school -- or just zap thru I-space. But, I concur with the other posters.....a low score on the essay, say, anything less than 7-8? will likely raise a question in the minds of adcoms at highly selective schools.</p>

<p>Just like in corporate america which spends big bucks on ill-fated mergers (too many to list), and other irrational forays into new business ventures, IMO, I don't expect that the CB is gonna change these essays for at least a decade (heck, it took 3-4 years to install this debacle). However, CB's biggest customer, and, more importantly, UC's flagships (Berkeley and UCLA) will heavily consider the W portion to weed out BWRK's with scores less than 700, of which the essay is 200+(?) points. W won't be as much of a factor to the other campuses, however, which admit B+/A- students.</p>

13

<p>True, Ohio Mom. ... but one has to ascertain the extent of the difference of an essay that earned an 8 versus a 10 or a 12. The essay accounts for 1/3 of the Writing score and students can earn perfect scores in Writing and still compose a poor essay. Will a score of 750 to 800 raise a flag? And, will the adcom truly understand how the essays are graded? By now, we all know that the SAT essay has little to do with college writing and writing aptitude. </p>

<p>Is there really ANYTHING to learn from the SAT essay?</p>

14

<p>My recollection of recent years is that colleges which cared about SAT writing required that the applicant submit a SAT2 Writng test score; and that many top colleges did not. 3 SAT2s of your choice was far more common at these schools. Is it likely that colleges with a lower opinion of the value of the SAT writing test will place less weight on it than on the traditional verbal and math scores?</p>

15

<p>Xiggi,
if an admissions dean were willing to incur the wrath of some of his staff - and maybe some writing profs (or TA's - easier to manage) he could have the answer after a couple of days of essay re-evaluation. My hypothetical dean would then have a half-dozen or so post-traumatic and very crabby academics (after reading essays for a couple of days) and a speadsheet with the CB scores and his college's scores. </p>

<p>What my son learned from the SAT II Writing (where, I suspect, the QA was much higher) was that if you write a good but short essay you get a 9. If you then read the two pages of PR tips (that you were too stubborn to read before because you know you are a good writer) and retake the test a month later, you get a 12.</p>

16

<p>Actually, anyone interested in hearing about the development of the new SAT, written by UC Chancelor Atkinson himself, would find this series of excellent articles very interesting:
<a href="http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=euLTJbMUKvH&b=291837&ct=843743%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=euLTJbMUKvH&b=291837&ct=843743&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>In the last and 4th article in this series, there is a link <a href="http://www.ucop.edu/sas/research/researchandplanning/pdf/sat_study.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ucop.edu/sas/research/researchandplanning/pdf/sat_study.pdf&lt;/a> to a large scale study that the UC conducted comparing college achievement (measured by GPA) with SAT I and SAT II scores that is also very interesting. I think THIS is the kind of analysis that admissions offices and academic deans at most schools will be conducting in deciding how to use the new SAT data, not just comparing essays on an individual basis.</p>

17

<p>I agree with what Xiggi is saying - the new writing component is virtually useless. I know I wouldn't want to be graded on a "first draft" of anything - emails, posts to CC, even shopping lists. The final, polished product is rarely recognizable from the first attempt.</p>

18

<p>Carolyn,
Thanks for the links!</p>

<p>"I think THIS is the kind of analysis that admissions offices and academic deans at most schools will be conducting in deciding how to use the new SAT data, not just comparing essays on an individual basis."</p>

<p>Ultimately - but looking at the raw data provides a clue as to whether the product CB says it is delivering is in the ballpark or not - or whether they should just ignore it completely this year.</p>

19

<p>We have visited 14 colleges with DD (including your's Xiggi) and ALL have said that they have no idea what they are going to do with the Writing portion of the new SAT. All have said that they will continue to use the Critical Reading (old verbal) and Math sections as they always have.</p>

20

<p>So this is the key section (in my judgment of Atkinson's remarks:</p>

<p>"In brief, the study shows that the SAT II is a far better predictor of college grades than the SAT I. The combination of high school grades and the three SAT IIs account for 22.2 percent of the variance in first-year college grades. When the SAT I is added to the combination of high school grades and the SAT IIs, the explained variance increases from 22.2 percent to 22.3 percent, a trivial increment. </p>

<p>The data indicate that the predictive validity of the SAT II is much less affected by differences in socioeconomic background than is the SAT I. After controlling for family income and parents' education, the predictive power of the SAT II is undiminished, whereas the relationship between SAT I scores and UC grades virtually disappears. The SAT II is not only a better predictor, but also a fairer test insofar as it is demonstrably less sensitive than the SAT I to differences in family income and parents' education."</p>

<p>Finally, what they found was that the writing SAT II was a better predictor of first-year college performance than the SAT I. In other words, they could throw out the SAT I altogether, keep the graded writing sample, and do a better job of predicting college performance than if they threw out the writing sample and kept the SAT I.</p>

<p>The new writing sample is virtually useless - because (if it is like the writing SAT II), it works.</p>