AEMers, take a look at this...

MomOfTwoTeens
Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:17:02 +0000

Cornell, like most colleges does NOT add in the writing section for the SAT.

Hilarious- the reason that it says the ACT has to be with writing is because one can not take the SAT without writing. To make things comparable for all applicants, they have writing scores for all, whether it’s the ACT or SAT. Scoring for the ACT is only 1 number (the average of 4 sections) and writing is a subscore that is not averaged in. While admissions does see the writing scores, it is not used in making admissions decisions whether one took the SAT or ACT.

The 1st year to take the “new” SAT w/writing is the class of 2010 (this year’s college seniors.) Writing wasn’t used for evaluation then because it was new & they didn’t know what the scores meant. The next year colleges said there while they had 1 year to compare scores with, they still didn’t have enough data. Why aren’t most colleges using the writing score with 4 years of data? Seems they recognize the poor design of the test & know the scores are not meaningful. Another brilliant move by Collegboard (sarcasm)