Only 17 percent of four-year colleges say they will require writing scores of students applying for admission in the fall of 2006, according to a recent survey conducted by ACT, the testing service located in Iowa City, Iowa.
Browse the results of the writing requirement survey, from the ACT.
A strong majority of those schools, 83 percent, say they would not require that students submit ACT writing-test results though some would recommend that they submit them, according to the ACT survey. Sixty-nine percent of the nation’s four-year institutions responded to the survey.
The ACT will offer an optional writing test this coming February. Its competitor, the SAT, will feature a mandatory writing test for the first time in March.
In a statement accompanying the survey results, ACT officials said they interpreted the poll as indicating that colleges wanted flexibility in judging the academic abilities of applicants, rather than having to conform to any given set of standards accepted by a broad set of institutions.
