Although it is well established that college entrance exams have become a key factor for admission to selective institutions, less is known about the influence of test scores in relation to other academic factors in the evaluation of a student's application file. This study conducts a randomized-controlled trial to determine whether providing…

In US-based postsecondary education, first-year students commonly have their compositional ability consequentially assessed on the basis of standardized tests. As a result, students who score above certain thresholds on ACT, SAT, or AP exams often are placed into honors or remedial courses; receive credit remissions; and/or test out of general…

Although it is well established that college entrance exams have become a key factor for admission to selective institutions, less is known about the influence of test scores in relation to other academic factors in the evaluation of a student's application file. This study conducts a randomized-controlled trial to determine whether providing…

This paper presents the results of a national validity study examining relationships between new SAT Essay scores and first semester grades in English and writing courses, as well as first-year grade point average (FYGPA) in college. The sample includes more than 180,000 first-year students across 171 four-year institutions. Results show that…

This study investigates the extent to which microfeatures -- such as basic text features, readability, cohesion, and lexical diversity based on specific word lists -- affect Chinese EFL writing quality. Data analysis was conducted using natural language processing, correlation analysis and stepwise multiple regression analysis on a corpus of 268…

No significant body of research examines writing achievement and the specific skills and knowledge in the writing domain for postsecondary (college) students in the U.S., even though many at-risk students lack the prerequisite writing skills required to persist in their education. This paper addresses this gap through a novel…

This study examines the relationship between students' SAT essay scores and college outcomes, including first-year grade point average (FYGPA) and first-year English course grade average (FY EngGPA), overall and by various demographic and academic performance subgroups. Results showed that the SAT essay score has a positive relationship with both…

The study applied the Multi-Dimensional analysis used by Biber (1988) to examine the functional parameters of essays. Co-occurrence patterns were identified within an essay corpus (n=1529) using a linguistic indices provided by Co-Metrix. These patterns were used to identify essay groups that shared features based upon situational parameters.…

Successfully navigating the road from elementary to high school only means that planning for college is the next route on the destination to post-secondary education. With the most elite colleges' acceptance rates hovering around 5-8 percent, it's never too early for parents to start educating themselves and their child about college planning.…

In this article, the author talks about the release of the most comprehensive study of SAT exams. The headline on the Web site of the College Board, the maker of the test, was, "SAT Studies Show Test's Strength in Predicting College Success." At the same time, a headline on the Web site of the group FairTest, a 23-year-old, nonprofit…

It is well-documented that students' prior knowledge, cultural background, and language proficiency play a role in how they read, interpret, and respond to writing tasks (Barkaoui, 2007; Connor & Kramer, 1995; Hinkel, 2002). Essays written by students from different language backgrounds often differ in their linguistic, stylistic, and…

[Slides] presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores what cues are used as a deciding factor in essay scoring by the essay grader.

This study was designed to address two frequent criticisms of the SAT essay--that essay length is the best predictor of scores, and that there is an advantage in using more "sophisticated" examples as opposed to personal experience. The study was based on 2,820 essays from the first three administrations of the new SAT. Each essay was…

The dreaded personal essay used to be the toughest part of the college-admissions process for the applicant. These days it's admissions officers who fret about student writing--and not just because they fall asleep reading endless takes on "overcoming adversity." They've got weightier concerns--plagiarized essays, students who receive…

In this article, the author discusses the five-paragraph essay, a way of organizing ideas into an introduction with a main argument, three body paragraphs that develop that argument, and a conclusion that advances the argument a step further by way of application or tantalizing suggestion. She stresses the importance of teaching the five-paragraph…