Brown University becomes college that is latest to drop SAT, ACT essay for applicants
Brown University this week became the school that is latest to avoid requiring prospective students to take SAT and ACT essay tests, joining a burgeoning list of selective universities and colleges which have eliminated the necessity this current year.
Brown was the last Ivy League school to require the writing assignment. Princeton University dropped the necessity earlier this month. Less than 25 schools now mandate students to submit essay scores as part of their college applications, based on some estimations.
Brown officials said the essay requirement might pose an impediment to students from low-income families. Students with lesser means often make use of free SAT testing offered through the school trip to nearly 8,000 schools across the country, in accordance with the university.
But the free offerings do not always range from the portion that is writing of exam, which university officials feared could dissuade students from applying to schools that want it.
“It’s important to allow students from low-income families to use the tests already offered by their school districts and never place an undue burden on them to go in separately outside of normal school hours,” Logan Powell, Brown’s dean of admission, said in a news release. “Our goal is that for almost any student that is talented in Brown, the program process is not a deterrent.”
Brian Clark, a university spokesman, said Brown continues to assess students’ writing abilities based on how they fare in writing-intensive high school classes and through college application essay questions.
“Standardized test performance is just one point of measurement, and we also have a look at an array of factors when considering each applicant for admission,” he said.
Applicants may still essay that is voluntarily submit, as well as the university encourages students to submit a graded paper from a humanities or social sciences class if they apply.
The essay tests emerged more than a dozen years ago in hopes they would reshape college admission testing and provide a tool to measure a student’s potential.
The faculty Board, which runs the SAT, mandated a 25-minute writing assignment in addition towards the main test 13 years ago and raised the maximum total score to 2400. Read more