The faculty Board failed to respond to a request for comment on the Yale announcement
Dropping the SAT Essay
Yale follows Harvard in ending requirement that students complete writing part of SAT or ACT. University of north park makes move that is similar leaving only 25 colleges with all the requirement. More colleges go test optional.
Yale University week that is last counselors who work with senior high school students that the university will no longer require applicants to complete the SAT essay or even the ACT writing test.
A memo Yale delivered to counselors said the university wished to result in the application process easier on those that use the SAT or ACT during school hours. Those administrations frequently usually do not give students time for the writing test, so students had to join up for the test another right time for you complete the writing test.
The move comes 90 days after Harvard University announced that it was making the essay that is SAT ACT writing test optional. Harvard’s announcement noted that its applicants submit essays included in their applications, so writing remains a crucial part of the application process.
As the moves by institutions such as for example Harvard and Yale capture attention, they reflect a more disinclination that is general of leaders toward the writing tests of the SAT and ACT. The Princeton Review, which tracks how many colleges require the test, now identifies only 25 institutions which do so. People with already dropped the necessity include Columbia and Cornell Universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, together with University of Pennsylvania.
The University of San Diego also recently announced it could no longer require the essay that is SAT ACT writing test. Stephen Pultz, assistant vice president for enrollment management at north park, said via email that “we decided the writing sections are not reliable measures for placement purposes, which will be how exactly we originally envisioned their use. We’ve had better success utilizing the other sections of the exams, Advanced Placement exams, and senior essay writers high school curriculum and grades.”
The College Board first started offering an essay in the SAT in 2005. But many writing experts were highly critical for the format, noting on top of other things so it would not judge whether statements were factually correct. Les Perelman, an MIT writing professor, famously coached students on how best to write ludicrous essays that will receive scores that are high.
In 2014, the school Board announced revisions into the SAT
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With substantial changes towards the essay, such as the utilization of writing passages to make test takers to cite evidence for opinions inside their essays.
Generally, critics of this first type of the writing test agreed that the version that is new better, but some continued to question perhaps the writing test had enough value to justify leading students to organize for and take it. Some advocates for the essay hoped the noticeable changes would lead more colleges to depend on it within the admissions process. But the news from Harvard and Yale, together with not enough fascination with adding the writing test as a requirement, suggests that this isn’t happening.
On its blog, Princeton Review said after Harvard’s decision that the essays should really be eliminated from the SAT and ACT. For them), even though a very small number of colleges actually use the scores while they are theoretically optional, many students feel pressure to take them (and prepare.
“While over 70 percent of students using the SAT and much more than 50 percent using the ACT opt in the essay, not even 2 percent of colleges require an essay score,” your blog post says. “Students and taxpayers are sending tens of vast amounts into the College Board’s and ACT’s coffers and don’t seem to be anything that is getting of it except that yet another source of anxiety when it comes to college applications. It really is time for the SAT and ACT essays to go.”
While Yale still requires applicants to take either the SAT or ACT for the nonwriting parts of the exams, more colleges continue steadily to announce they are going test optional. Among the colleges in recent weeks announcing these policies are Concordia University (St. Paul), Prescott College and Rider University.