SAT redesigned to better reflect high school coursework

The College Board recently announced an extensive redesign of the SAT, but it remains unclear how the changes could affect University of California admissions.

Among the most significant changes that will go into effect in spring 2016, the test’s essay will become optional and the exam will return to its former 1,600 point grading scale from the current 2,400 point scale.

The changes are designed to make the test more transparent and to measure knowledge that is more applicable to college learning, said Stephen Handel,the associate vice presidentof UC undergraduate admissions and executive director of higher education relationship development and community college initiatives at College Board.

Until the specific changes to the SAT are released next month, the UC will not be able to fully understand or predict possible changes to its admissions, Handel said.

At that time, the UC will consult with faculty to decide the impact of the changes on admission to the University and if the essay portion should be mandatory for prospective applicants, he added.

The essay, which will be allotted 50 minutes instead of the current 25 minutes, will focus more on evidence-based analysis. The test will ask students to analyze and evaluate an author’s argument based on a provided text excerpt.

The UC, the largest single customer of the SAT, advocated for the inclusion of the essay portion 10 years ago to place greater emphasis on writing skills such as the ability to concisely respond to a prompt, Handel said.

Although the academic community is split on the value of the 25-minute essay as a predictor of collegiate success, he said the new SAT will more accurately reflect the high school curriculum students are exposed to and will still test critical reading and writing skills.

In terms of scoring, points will no longer be deducted for incorrect answers and the test will instead follow a “right-only” scoring format that will not penalize students for guessing.

Changes to the reading and writing section will replace some SAT vocabulary with words more likely to appear in college classes, like “empirical.”

The math section will be geared more toward math that is used in college and careers, like algebra and data analysis.

Data and texts will be drawn from a wider variety of disciplines with a focus on real-world context. For instance, each test will include a passage from or based on one of America’s founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence.

And for the first time, the SAT will also be available to take on computers.

At an announcement event last week, College Board President David Coleman said the changes are designed to better prepare students for success in college and will focus on providing more opportunities to low-income students.

The redesigned test will place greater emphasis on college and career readiness and will be modeled on advanced high school coursework rather than arbitrary assessment, Coleman said in a press statement.

Critics of the SAT have been arguing for years that the test is not necessarily the best assessment for college readiness, in particular when compared to the ACT, which has surpassed the SAT in the number of test takers.

Professor Sylvia Hurtado of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies said the high school grade point average is the best predictor of success in higher education, not standardized test scores like the SAT.

Hurtado, who served on the UC Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, said she thinks the SAT is less aligned with high school curriculum than the ACT, which may be a reason for the redesign.

“I am concerned that it is really an attempt to recapture market share of the sales of the tests and (the SAT) is ashamed it has taken this long to respond to criticisms,” Hurtado said.

The College Board announced that students from low- and middle-income backgrounds who take the SAT will receive four free college application fee waivers.

Also, a planned partnership with Khan Academy, an online education site, is set to provide free online test materials to prepare students for the revised SAT format, as current SAT preparation classes are often expensive and have been said to give an unfair advantage to higher-income students.

“The majority of low-income, high-achieving students do not apply to colleges within their reach,” said Carly Lindauer, a spokeswoman for College Board, in an email statement. “The redesigned SAT will reward productive use of classroom time and a focus on rigorous coursework.”