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A Times Editorial
The College Board's plans to revise the SAT, which will include a writing exam, should offer a better gauge of academic abilities.
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 15, 2002
Faced with the prospect of losing one of its biggest customers, the College Board is planning to make major and much-needed improvements to the SAT I college admissions exam. The changes will pose a challenge to high school students but should provide a better gauge of their academic abilities.
The new SAT, which won't be used until 2005, will include a tougher math test, longer reading passages in the verbal portion and the addition of a writing exam that will carry as much weight as each of the other two sections. The addition of a third test shifts two-thirds of the SAT's focus to verbal skills, putting the most emphasis on a student's ability to read and write coherently -- invaluable skills that anyone should have attained after 13 years of schooling.
The College Board announced that it planned to revise the test in March, after the University of California proposed dropping the exam as an admission requirement. The nine-school system charged that the SAT was biased toward kids from higher-income families who could afford to re-take the test in hopes of boosting their scores.
While the changes won't extinguish that argument -- the writing exam could add up to $10 to the SAT's cost, which will be $26 this fall -- they will provide college admissions officers with a better way to gauge prospective students. A 200-word essay that describes a day a student will never forget or discusses statements such as "nothing requires more discipline than freedom" -- both sample topics that will be models for the new writing test -- will give admissions officers a much more vivid impression of the student than a pencil-marked bubble sheet ever could.
UC administrators also argued that the SAT, a test of reasoning and critical thinking skills, was not a direct measure of what students are taught in high schools. But the updated version of the test will require students to use the same skills they employ for state-mandated writing tests. It should also push school curriculums to bolster all efforts aimed at improving students' verbal skills.
For the College Board, its largest obstacle will be scoring the new SAT. The organization plans to grade the exams within two weeks, which could create a logistical nightmare considering that more than 1.3-million students took the SAT this year.
The College Board will likely need to extend its self-imposed deadline or take on additional staff to ensure that students' essays are judged fairly and accurately. The improved SAT will provide more meaningful results as long as the organization takes the extra steps needed to ensure that the extra preparations in the classroom aren't in vain.