A study released Tuesday by New York-based College Board, creator of the SAT college entrance exam, shows the test’s recent addition of a writing section added time and expense but did little to boost the exam’s ability to predict a student’s success in college, and failed to remedy what some critics see as cultural insensitivity.
According to the report, a high school student’s grade point average remains the best single predictor of college success. When analyzed with the student’s SAT score, the predictive quality improves. The ability of the writing portion to gauge future success, however, was found to be equal to that of the traditional SAT, consisting of one math and one reading section. The news comes at a time when more than 40 schools in the past two years have opted out of requiring the test, including Fairfax’s George Mason University, Baltimore’s Goucher College and Roanoke College in Salem, Va.
“We felt like many other small colleges did,” said Brenda Poggendorf, Roanoke’s vice president for enrollment. “The truest prediction of a student’s success has a lot of variables.” At Roanoke, students can submit two graded, research-based writing samples in place of an SAT score.
Scoring the writing portion for the SAT has added significant cost: This year, the test cost $45, up from $28.50 in 2003.
Females, blacks and Hispanics continued to lag compared with their white male peers, even though their first-year performance in college exceeded what their SAT scores predicted. Critics of the exam say this indicates females and many minorities aren’t getting acceptances and scholarships consistent with their abilities.
Officials at the College Board say the discrepancies indicate more complex social problems. “Certain groups perform at different levels nationwide, which reflects different access to education nationwide, but the test is absolutely fair,” said Laurence Bunin, vice president for operations.
Critics at Cambridge, Mass.-based National Center for Fair and Open Testing say Bunin is covering for the flaws of his product.
“It’s hard to believe that any four-hour test can give you as much information as four years of high school course work,” spokesman Robert Schaeffer said, “course work which includes plenty of tests and lots of real writing.”
