UC system should make standardized test essays optional

Starting in 2016, standardized test essays became optional for all test takers of both the SAT and ACT. But officials in the University of California system apparently didn’t get the memo.

The requirement to submit the essay score as part of the college application leads to many students spending extra time preparing for the essay section if they want to apply for UCs. This is time that would be better spent on their actual classes.

Instead of relying on this outdated measure, UC officials should nullify the SAT and ACT essay requirement entirely. There is no reason this requirement should cause students additional grief by mandating the essay when the College Board has already given students the liberty of choosing whether to take the essay test.

In addition, the SAT and ACT essays both add additional costs to the registration price of taking the test. For the SAT, it costs $47.50 without the essay and $64.50 with. For the ACT, it costs students $50.50 without and $67 with the essay.

Scott Jaschik from Inside Higher Ed writes that despite many universities dropping the essay requirement in recent years, including all Ivy League schools, there is still “one giant obstacle: the University of California.”

Jaschik notes that while the UC system uses SAT essays to critique students’ reading, analytical and writing skills, other colleges have used alternate supplementary material, such as a school-written essay, to replace the SAT essay. Additionally, almost all colleges already require personal statements and supplemental writings from applicants; the UC system already has its own four short essay prompts. All of these can be used to evaluate students’ critical thinking and writing skills.

Not only are these alternate options cheaper for students, but they are also more effective than the SAT at evaluating student proficiencies.

Whereas the SAT gives too little time — merely 50 minutes — for students to outline and integrate quality analysis into their essays, school essays, on the other hand, allow students to have enough time to plan and elaborate on their ideas. In addition, the school essay-writing process emphasizes students’ ability to improve as a writer through peer and self-review instead of their ability to follow a formulaic writing style used to obtain a good score on the SAT essay, and this demonstration of improvement will show colleges more about each individual student’s learning process than any standardized test essays ever will. Colleges will also be able to see students’ writing in a variety of essay styles, whereas the SAT essay tests analytical writing alone.

The quality of supplemental school essays also gives insights into how difficult different high schools’ English curriculums are, allowing college admissions officers to differentiate among students attending schools of varying difficulty.

The UC system should consider these other ways of evaluating student writing. Competitive universities across the country have already dropped the SAT essay and replaced them with writing evaluation processes that offers a fairer way to gauge a student’s ability to write; the UC system, being one of the most competitive university systems in the U.S., should do the same.