For college admissions officers, the College Board's plan to add a new writing section to the SAT brings a host of new questions -- and, possibly, an answer to the growing problem of college application essays so polished as to indicate that a student probably had extensive adult help.
On Thursday, the College Board's trustees are expected to vote to revamp the SAT, starting in the spring of 2005. The new SAT, officials at the College Board have indicated, will include a 20-to-30-minute handwritten essay question that will be scored by the board, and scanned onto a computer Web site, available to admissions officers at colleges where the students have submitted their scores.
The College Board's move to revise the SAT came in response to the dissatisfaction of the University of California, the largest user of the test, which is seeking a test that includes a writing sample, and that is more closely tied to the high school curriculum. The revised SAT will cover a third year of high school math, eliminate the verbal analogy questions that have confounded generations of applicants, and increase the emphasis on reading skills.
It seems very clear that the changes will send ripples through the college admissions process nationwide -- giving colleges, for the first time, easy access to an undoctored writing sample.
''The nice thing about a writing sample is that we know the author is the author,'' said John Barnhill, director of admissions at Florida State University. ''With the essays we get on the application, we often wonder what it looked like before it went to the parents, the teachers, the 15 people who may have read it and made suggestions.''
Neither Mr. Barnhill nor admissions officers at other schools have decided how they would use the writing sample. Most said they did not expect to use it to replace the essay submitted with the application, because even if students received outside help, that essay helps the college get to know them.
But however the new writing sample is used, many see it as a welcome addition to their arsenal of tools for evaluating applicants.
''If we see a disconnect, like a highly sophisticated essay from a student with mediocre English grades and low verbal scores on the SAT, it might be very nice to go online to see a sample of work produced in a controlled situation where there's no possibility of outside help,'' said Gary Ross, dean of admissions at Colgate.
Agreement is widespread among admissions officers at a variety of colleges that application essays are becoming increasingly polished, often showing signs of assistance from parents, teachers, college consultants or writing coaches.
''More and more kids are getting help with packaging themselves,'' said Chris Hooker-Haring, the dean of admissions at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. ''It can make it difficult to assess what it is you're reading, when you read that essay.''
As a practical matter, though, Mr. Hooker-Haring and others said it was unlikely that admissions officers would go online to read every single applicant's essay.
''It's hard to know how this will work,'' he said. ''But I can imagine cases where we're reading something very polished from a student who's never gotten higher than a B in English, never taken an honors course, and we'd like to see something a little less varnished.''
Mr. Hooker-Haring said that while he has doubts about the degree to which any standardized test scores provide an accurate reflection of intellectual capacity -- and whether the scores measure speed more than brain power -- he is particularly skeptical about the value of writing sample grades, which are, necessarily, subjective.
The College Board said it will use the same scoring process that it uses for the SAT II Writing test.
''We use two readers per test and a third reader if their scores are not in line,'' said Linda Bunnell Shade, the College Board vice president for higher education. ''We have standardized it, so usually the scores are very close.''
The new writing section on the SAT will closely mirror that SAT II Writing test, an hourlong test that includes a writing sample and multiple-choice editing questions. The new writing test will increase the length of the SAT to three and a half hours from three hours.
Dozens of colleges now require applicants to take the SAT II Writing test, which may be eventually be dropped as redundant -- or revised to include a longer writing sample, perhaps done on computer.
In theory, colleges have been able to see writing samples from the SAT II, by requesting a xerox copy from the College Board. But college admissions officers rarely requested copies, finding the process too cumbersome.
The University of California, and the College Board, have both expressed concern that the SAT favors students from wealthy families. But some college admissions officials worry that the writing sample may increase the bias by expanding the advantage for those who can afford expensive coaching services, and whose schools take pains to teach essay skills. The addition of the writing sample, too, will increase costs: the College Board estimates that the price of the SAT, $26 next fall, will need to be $6 to $11 higher to cover the cost of grading the essay.
''These are going to be graded very quickly, in something like four minutes, by readers who are scanning for specific things,' said Joshua Bergey, associate director of admissions at Oberlin. ''It's a particular kind of writing that's very coachable. I'm concerned that the essay is going to increase the disparity between kids who are coached in this kind of essay writing, and the ones who don't get prepped.''
