As many of you know, the College Board changed the SAT in 2005 to add a writing section to the required test. There have been many criticisms of the new writing test since that time and many colleges either don’t consider it or give it limited consideration. Several new studies, however, indicate that the writing test is actually a better predictor of college grades than the critical reading and math tests from the SAT. The studies come from the College Board and the University of California. The writing test was originally added to the full SAT at the insistence of the University of California which had threatened to stop using the SAT unless changes were made.

Although I think there are still substantial concerns about the validity of the writing section of the SAT, it appears that with these new studies more colleges will reevaluate their usage of the writing section.

Inside Higher Ed had an interesting, although depressing, article today on the state of equality in college admissions. Part of that article discussed a paper entitled “Is 1500 the new 1280? The SAT and admissions since Bakke” by Catherine L. Horn of the University of Houston and John T. Yun, of the University of California at Santa Barbara. This paper looked at the average verbal SAT score of students at the 30 top colleges and universities as determined by the US News rankings.

In 1989 only one of these 30 colleges reported that more than 30% of the freshman class had a verbal SAT score above 700. Currently, more than 30% of the freshman class had verbal SAT scores above 700 at all but four of these colleges. At half of these colleges more than 50% of the freshman had verbal SAT scores above 700. The implication discussed by the paper is the shift in admissions by elite colleges to students who score very high on standardized testing.

There is no question that the number of high test scorers has increased in the last 20 years. However, SAT test scores from 1989 can not be directly compared to current test scores without an adjustment. Because of declining average test scores between approximately 1975 and 1995 the SAT was “re-centered” in 1995. In effect this added approximately 100 points the the average test score to bring the average back to around 500. The amount of score increase varied depending on the score but this factor cannot be ignored.

A second issue is that almost all of these colleges take the highest verbal score from multiple exam dates. It is possible that students are taking more exams now than in 1989 and thus have more opportunity to gain a high score.

Finally, the effect of test preparation must be considered. I believe that the number of students who participate in test prep classes at this time exceeds the number that prepared for these tests in 1989. Multiple studies have shown that a certain level of improved performance can be gained by most students who prepare for these exams.

I have not had a chance to read the study mentioned and hopefully these factors were taken into consideration. While it may be nice to argue that these colleges should take more chances on students who score low on these exams, it is unlikely that the colleges will do so unless there is a universal replacement of these tests for college admissions. I am not a fan of standardized testing but I will be surprised if the SAT is replaced anytime soon.

The New York Times recently published an article discussing the need for counselors to work with students in finding the best college for their needs. While the article simply restated the fact that most high school students have inadequate college counseling, I was struck when actually considering the numbers.

The article addressed some of the numbers from the State of College Admission 2007 which is published by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The average public high school counselor spends only 23% of their time advising 311 students on colleges. When this is broken down it turns out that the typical public high school counselor spends 64 minutes during the entire year advising students on issues related to colleges. Even more disturbing, only 10% of public high schools provide a college counselor specialist for their students.

Surprisingly, the typical private school counselor doesn’t fair that much better. Private school counselors spend 56% of their time advising students on colleges and have 234 students to advise. This breaks down to 3 hours and 26 minutes that the private school counselor has for each student in their college advising.

In preparing for college students need to consider the courses they are taking, what courses to take, what tests to take and when, what extracurricular involvement they should have, what colleges to consider, factors to consider in deciding how to pay for college, the application process and when to apply, factors considering the college visit, who and when to ask for recommendations and the list keeps going. It is unfortunate that this country continues to inadequately fund schools so that there are not enough qualified counselors. But it is a national disgrace to think that students are only provided with one hour of advice on all of the issues surrounding the search for the right college.

I was recently made aware that several highly selective colleges are now combining ACT sub scores from different tests to create a super score like is down with the SAT. The colleges are Washington University in St. Louis and Amherst College. With the increasing popularity of the ACT exam in the traditional SAT areas of the East and West coast the significance of super scoring can be significant. If these two colleges are starting to super score their ACT reported scores will increase and put pressure on other colleges to also start using super scoring for the ACT. If this occurs then the average ACT scores reported by these colleges will increase which will make it appear that the college’s test scores are higher than they really are.

I general discuss with the students I counsel the advantages and disadvantages of the ACT and SAT. One of the advantages of the SAT, relative to the ACT, was the super scoring that occurs at most colleges. Now it appears that that advantage may be going away. More and more it is becoming important for students to understand each of the exams to determine which is a better choice for their needs.

A test prep company, ePrep, is now offering free PSAT prep including 2 full PSAT practice tests. I assume that the company is offering the free PSAT prep in the hope that students will then buy their SAT prep program. I don’t know anything about this company other than what I read on their website but it rarely hurts to practice for any standardized test. There is little available on the web involving free PSAT prep as most sites just focus on the SAT.

I am not a huge fan of paying for test prep but there are students that can benefit from such a program. With a free offer, I would recommend that people give the prep a try to see if it helps. Although the PSAT is not used by any college for admissions purposes, it is the test used to determine National Merit Scholars so doing well on the test can have some real benefits.

In October 2005 thousands of students took the SAT. This was not news until information started to come out that the scoring on many of those tests was wrong and in many cases lower than they should have been. Supposedly this occurred because of extra moisture in the area where the tests were being scored. A lawsuit resulted and it was announced today that the Collegeboard and NCS Pearson, the company scoring the tests, would pay $2.85 million into a settlement account to be used to pay damages to the students involved. Each student that took the October 2005 SAT is entitled to $275. If the student believes she can show damages greater than that they can file a form for additional review. Such forms are subject to binding awards made by a retired judge.

It is good that this matter has now been resolved but unfortunately many of these students will have no way of proving their damages exceed $275. While the mistakes in scoring may not have made any difference in admissions or financial aid, none of these students will truly know what it was that they might have missed. This news comes under the category of sometimes life just isn’t fair.

The head lecturer in expository writing at Harvard University recently offered some suggestions on how to write the SAT essay portion. Although the suggestions were offered to students in Korea they apply just as well to American students who plan on taking the SAT. This short article should be read by all students before taking the SAT.

I recently published a new article discussing the issues to consider when trying to decide whether to take the SAT or ACT for college admissions purposes. The article has been published at College Basics as well as my own site. One of the first suggestions is to take a practice test of each exam to see on which test you do better. If you find that you don’t do as well as you would like on either test then you might want to consider some of the many great colleges that don’t require testing at all. If that is the case, head over to FairTest for their list of test optional colleges.

There are a number of other suggestions that all students starting the college search process should review. If you are not looking at a test optional college then the score you get on the SAT or ACT can sometimes make the difference between admission or rejection.

Goucher College, a selective liberal arts college in Baltimore, announced today that they are joining the ranks of colleges that will no longer require standardized tests for admissions. The other day Merrimack College, a selective Catholic college near Boston announced that they were also eliminating the testing requirement for admissions. This brings the current total of colleges that don’t require testing to over 740 according to Fairtest.

Students with good test taking abilities can still submit test scores to most of the colleges that don’t require them but for those students that don’t do as well on standardized tests, the test optional schools provide some reassurance that you can still find a good college for your needs.

Students often look for a comprehensive source of what colleges require or recommend the SAT subject tests. Here is a list put together from another blog, Admission Source. The information appears correct but of course, you should check with any particular college in which you are interested to verify their testing requirements. These requirements are subject to change and you can only be assured of correct information by talking to the admissions department of the college itself.