Admission
Our Approach to the New SAT
Paul Marthers, Dean of Admission at Reed College
In the winter of 2005, the SAT changed dramatically. At least on the surface the addition of a third section looked like a radical alteration to a standardized test long known for its1600-point scoring scale. The SAT, a test that has become synonymous with the college application process, is now scored on a 2400-point scale. In addition to adding a third section that assesses writing, there are changes below the surface of the remaining verbal (now called critical reading) and math components—no more verbal analogies or quantitative comparisons, for example. Students are apprehensive about the challenge and the novelty posed by the changes to the SAT. Colleges are too. Students are wondering if the new required essay matters as much as the more traditional sections and are asking what is a good score on the new 2400-point scale? Admission officers are wondering what impact the new SAT will have on their ability to gauge each applicant's qualifications.
While I cannot offer definitive answers to those concerns, I do know that each college or university has its own particular situation that will determine how it will handle the new SAT. Georgetown University and California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo, for example, have already announced that they won't consider the SAT writing score on the same par as the verbal and math sections. I applaud both institutions for stating clear positions on the new SAT. As the dean of admission at a small college that has a national reach, I am asked frequently to speculate on how Reed College's peers will treat the new SAT. I can guess how other small liberal arts colleges will react to the new SAT, but that kind of conjecture is akin to guessing the answer to an SAT question. Odds are I will guess wrong. So I will stick to what I know: Reed College's take on the new SAT. Maybe Reed's stance will mirror the response of most other national liberal arts colleges. Maybe it won't. Time and experience with the new SAT will tell.
As we receive scores on the new SAT, much of Reed's attention will focus on the writing exam. The essay component is the major alteration to the test, the one getting all the press, and the one I have heard discussed most at national admission conferences. Reed will take a cautious, evaluative, and, quite frankly, skeptical stance toward the new SAT. Until we are convinced that the new test offers us significant information that we do not already factor into admission decisions, Reed will not change its approach to the SAT. Reed will view the SAT verbal/critical reading and the SAT math sections, despite the changes, as we did before and consider the new writing section analogous to the former SAT II writing exam. While that test existed, Reed recommended, but did not require, submission of the SAT II in writing. There are reasons, which I will get to later, why Reed has always questioned the value of any standardized test in writing and will continue to do so.
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Test scores have a mixed history at predicting academic success at small liberal arts colleges. Most notably, Bates College in Maine discovered 20 years ago that SAT's were of no value in its admission process and stopped requiring them. Now at least a dozen respected national liberal arts colleges make submission of standardized tests like the SAT and ACT optional. Internal research studies at Reed show that grades and the rigor of courses selected in high school are the best predictors of success in the College's curriculum. SAT scores add marginally to the predictive matrix, and are generally most helpful when one of the sub-scores is a statistical outlier on the low end. Like many other selective liberal arts colleges Reed finds as well that the math SAT helps predict a student's facility for courses in the sciences, math, and certain heavily quantitative social sciences such as economics.
Reed, like most other small colleges, has a writing-intensive curriculum. Students are far more likely to get assigned analytical papers, lab reports, take-home essay exams, and, of course, a senior thesis than multiple choice tests or graded essays administered under severe time constraints. In the Reed curriculum, the most commonly employed student assessment procedures do not match the format of the SAT. The same is true of the other liberal arts colleges where I have studied or worked: Bennington, Oberlin, and Vassar. For curricular reasons, Reed's admission committee, which engages faculty and deans in parts of the decision-making process, will view the new SAT, the same way it views all standardized exams, in a holistic context of numerous academic and personal factors and with a healthy degree of skepticism.
In particular, we will examine the scores we see from the SAT's new writing section, the cornerstone of which is a 25-minute essay, knowing that Reed students will almost never encounter an analogous exam in a Reed class. Our concerns about the SAT writing section mirror those raised recently by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Like the NCTE, we worry that the standardized and time-limited nature of the SAT essay will encourage a kind of artificial, mechanized, writing-for-the-test that seems antithetical to the reflective and analytical writing taught in a liberal arts curriculum. Like the NCTE, we further believe that good writing involves rewriting, something the SAT's 25-minute essay does not allow.
The
application essays we ask applicants to write and the graded high school writing assignment we ask
them to submit more accurately reflect the kind of writing students do at Reed. From those samples
of writing, the admission committee gauges the applicant's facility with written expression and draws
conclusions about the applicant's ability to navigate a writing-intensive curriculum successfully. The
required essays and graded writing sample also provide the admission committee with a glimpse into
the personalities and passions of our applicants. At a college that prizes independent thought,
inculcates analytical acumen, and cultivates intellectual rigor, what the applicant selects to write
about and chooses to send helps convey those Reed-like qualities far better than the score achieved
on a time-limited writing exam.
That does not mean that the new SAT writing exam has no merits. Certainly some of the skills that produce a fine score on the SAT essay are applicable to the writing required in a challenging liberal arts curriculum. The grammatical and reading diagnostic sections of the new SAT writing exam will provide a useful measure of each applicant's mastery of the foundation fundamentals on which good analytical writing rests. The SAT writing exam, like its predecessor the SAT II writing subject test, will provide another piece in the puzzle of the admission assessment, a puzzle piece that Reed will consider on par with items such as extracurricular involvement, recommendation letters, and Advanced Placement (AP) exam scores (if submitted).
When we begin receiving scores from the new SAT, we will be curious, from a research perspective, to see how the writing scores square with each applicant's grades in English courses, the quality of the application essays, and the sophistication of the required graded writing sample. I would hope that high scores on the new SAT writing section will be matched by high grades in English classes, high AP English scores, and high SAT verbal scores. What will be even more interesting to watch is the extent to which SAT I writing scores correlate with scores on the ACT's new optional essay exam, which Reed will accept but not require.
I would be less than honest if I did not say that many long-time admission officers view the recent changes to the SAT as equivalent to a rearrangement of the chairs on the deck of the ship, rather than an overhaul of the engine below. That may not be a fair or accurate assessment, but it is reflective of the show-me attitude that many of us in college admission take every time the College Board or the ACT announce changes to standardized exams that we know are both valuable and fallible. And finally, to the question, what is a good score on the new 2400-point SAT, I say just invoke a little SAT math: divide your score by three then multiply that number by two to compare to the old 1600-point scale. Confused? Take heart. Reed is sticking to the old 1600-point (verbal/critical reading + math) scale.
