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The essay portion of the SAT has a somewhat lengthy and tumultuous history. After all, the very first College Board standardized tests delivered in 1900 were entirely essay-based, but the SAT had dropped all essays from its format by the 1920s and did not reappear again until 2005.

When another redesign of the SAT was announced in 2014, many wondered if the essay, as the most recent addition, would make the cut. The College Board, considering whether to keep it or not, reportedly sought feedback from hundreds of members in admissions and enrollment . Advocates of the essay felt it gave candidates more dimension. Critics believed that the essay was not indicative of college readiness. A review of assessment validity confirmed that the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section of the SAT “is deeply predictive of college success,” whereas the essay is much less so.

Ultimately, the decision was made to make the essay an optional part of the SAT. This was an innovative move, signaling the first time that the College Board had made any component of the SAT optional.

Furthermore, the essay format has changed as well. Instead of arguing a specific side of a debate or topic presented in the prompt, you will now be asked to analyze a passage for writing style. This prompt is more aligned with the types of critical writing pieces that you can expect to be assigned in college.

As with all things new, the new SAT has taken some getting used to. Students, parents, teachers, and tutors alike have had to adjust to some significant changes in format and content. But the good news is that the new SAT is no longer an unknown variable. The essay in particular is now a well-known and understood piece of the puzzle, with the prompt remaining the same on each administration of the test. The only thing that has changed is the passage to be analyzed.

To learn more about the most significant changes on the SAT, read CollegeVine’s A Guide to the New SAT or review Khan Academy’s video overview of Content Changes to the New SAT .

Do I have to take the SAT with Essay?

As mentioned above, the essay is technically an optional section on the SAT — so no, you are not required to take it. That being said, some colleges or universities do require applicants to submit SAT with Essay scores. If you choose not to take the essay portion of the test, you will not be an eligible applicant for any of these schools. To find the essay policy at schools you’re interested in, use the College Board’s College Essay Policies search feature.

Should I take the optional SAT Essay?

If you are at all unsure of which colleges you’ll be applying to, or you know that at least one of the schools you’re interested in requires the SAT with Essay, you should go ahead and take the essay portion of the test. If you don’t register for the SAT with Essay at first, you can add it later through your online College Board account. Registration for the SAT with Essay costs $57 as opposed to the $45 for the SAT without the optional essay section.

What is the format of the new SAT Essay?

The new SAT Essay is a lot like a typical college or upper-level high school writing assignment in which you’re asked to analyze a text. You’ll be provided a passage between 650 and 750 words, and you will be asked to explain how the author builds an argument to persuade his or her audience. You will need to use evidence from the text to support your explanation. Unlike on past SATs, you will not be asked to agree or disagree with a position on a topic, and you will not be asked to write about your personal experiences.

You will have 50 minutes to read the passage, plan your work, and write your essay. Although this seems like an extremely limited amount of time, it is actually double the time allowed on the SAT Essay prior to March 2016.

The instructions and prompt on the SAT Essay, beginning in March 2016, are always the same. They read:

As you read the passage below, consider how [the author] uses:

• Evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims
• Reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence
• Stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed

These instructions will be followed by the passage that you’re intended to analyze. After the passage, you will see the prompt:

Write an essay in which you explain how [the author] builds an argument to persuade [his/her] audience of [author’s claim]. In your essay, analyze how [the author] uses one or more of the features listed above (or features of your own choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of [his/her] argument. Be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage.

Your essay should not explain whether you agree with [the author’s] claims, but rather explain how the author builds an argument to persuade [his/her] audience.

Although you can expect the passages to be different, they will all share some common characteristics. You can expect the SAT Essay to be based on passages that are written for a broad audience, argue a point, express subtle views on complex subjects, and use logical reasoning and evidence to support claims. These passages examine ideas, debates, or trends in the arts and sciences; or civic, cultural, or political life; and they are always taken from published works.

How will my essay be assessed?

Your essay will be assessed in three scoring categories, each of which will be included on your score report. Two people will read your essay and score it independently. These scorers will each award between one and four points in each scoring category. If the scores you receive in a single category vary by more than one point, an SAT expert scorer will review your essay.   

The scoring categories are:

A successful essay shows that you understood the passage, including the interplay of central ideas and important details. It also shows an effective use of textual evidence.

A successful essay shows your understanding of how the author builds an argument by:

• Examining the author’s use of evidence, reasoning, and other stylistic and persuasive techniques
• Supporting and developing claims with well-chosen evidence from the passage

A successful essay is focused, organized, and precise, with an appropriate style and tone that varies sentence structure and follows the conventions of standard written English.

Scores on the SAT Essay range from six to 24. To review a more specific breakdown for each scoring category, see the College Board SAT Essay Scoring Rubric .

Is my essay score always included on my score report sent to colleges?

Yes, your essay scores will always be reported with your other test scores from that day. There is no option to report only specific sections of your score. Even if you use Score Choice to choose which day’s scores you send to colleges, you can never send only some scores from a certain test day. For example, you cannot select to send Math scores but not Writing and Language or Essay scores.

What are the key strategies for the new SAT Essay test?

Remember the prompt.

On test day you will have only 50 minutes to read the passage, plan your analysis, and write your essay. Every minute will count. Because the prompt is the same on each SAT, you can save yourself some very valuable time by remembering exactly what the prompt asks you to do. That way, you won’t have to bother reading it on the day of your test.

Also remember that the prompt is asking only for your analysis. It is not asking you to summarize the passage or state your own opinion of it. Instead, while reading and creating a rough outline, you should focus on restating the main point that the author is arguing and analyzing how that point is made. Use only evidence taken directly from the passage and focus on how the author uses this evidence, reasoning, and other rhetorical techniques to build a convincing argument.

In short, when you begin your essay on test day, you should be able to skip reading the actual prompt and get straight to examining the author’s choices in presenting the argument. You should not waste any time summarizing the content of the passage or stating your own opinion of it.

Create a Rough Outline

When you’re under pressure to create a well-written essay in a limited amount of time, it can be tempting to skip the outline. Don’t fall into this thinking. While an outline may take some time to create, it will ultimately save you time and effort during the actual writing process.

The bulk of the outline you create should focus on the body paragraphs of your essay. You should have three main points you want to highlight, each being a specific method that the author uses to argue his or her point. These could include the use of logic, an appeal to emotions, or the style of diction or tone. As you read, identify the primary ways in which the author supports his or her argument. List the three most relevant methods in your outline, and then briefly cite examples of each underneath.

This very rough outline will shape the bulk of your essay and can ultimately save you the time it would take to remember these details during the actual writing process. 

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Stick to the Standard 5-Paragraph Essay Format

By this point in your high school career, you should have some experience writing a five-paragraph essay. The format is probably already familiar to you. As a refresher, a five-paragraph essay is generally structured like this:

I. Introductory Paragraph

• Give some very basic background about the topic (for example, why the author is writing this piece)
• Restate the author’s argument clearly
• Write a concise thesis statement summarizing three ways in which the author proves his or her point

II. Body Paragraphs

• One body paragraph per method used by the author
• Include two to three specific examples directly from the passage
• Analyze how effective these are

III. Conclusion

• Restate your thesis
• Briefly summarize the effectiveness of the author’s argument

While you may feel that 50 minutes is not enough time to plan and write an entire five-paragraph essay, you are best off keeping each paragraph brief and to the point rather than writing a more detailed essay in a shorter format. Each body paragraph should be only five or six sentences, while your introduction and conclusion can be even shorter if you write them effectively.

Practice Reading and Critiquing Opinion Pieces

The best way to prepare for the type of thinking and analysis required by the SAT Essay is to immerse yourself in reading and critiquing similar opinion pieces. The passage for the SAT Essay will always argue one side of a debate or topic, so other opinion pieces, editorials, and persuasive essays are all similar in content.

Read lots of these to become familiar with the style of writing. As you read, make mental notes of the methods that the authors use to make their points. Recognize patterns in these methods across pieces. For example, you might notice that casual diction is used to create a feeling of communal cause. These are points that you could also use in your analysis on the SAT Essay if they apply to the particular passage you receive.

Be An Active Reader

This will take you right back to your early high school and even junior high years. To be efficient on the SAT Essay, you will need to read closely and carefully in a limited amount of time. Staying engaged in the passage and making effective notations that will aid your analysis are critical.

You are probably familiar with some active reading strategies, and if that’s the case, stick with whatever notation you usually use. There’s no right way to do it, as long as your markings keep you actively engaged in the text and make your writing process easier.

This could include circling or bracketing off the thesis statement as you read. You might underline supporting details or come up with a system to mark for different literary devices (for example, a heart in the margin to denote an emotional appeal). If part of the argument seems unclear, put a question mark in the margin so that you can review it later.

Keep These Key Questions in Mind

It’s easy to get off track when you’re under pressure and rushing to complete a task. These are some good questions to keep in mind to ensure your essay stays on track:

Does the author use facts or logic to support claims? How does he or she do so? Is this effective? Could it be more effective? How so?

Discussing the author’s use of logic — often called an appeal to logos — speaks directly to an audience’s sense of reason. This is a very effective method of persuasion since it will just “make sense” to most readers.

What stylistic rhetorical devices does the author use to support claims?

Another common strategy used by authors involves the style and flow of their words. Does he or she make use of analogies, word repetition, or alliteration? These are all rhetorical devices about which you could write.

How does specific word choice contribute to the overall effectiveness of the piece?

Words are powerful. They can elicit emotions; they can create a sense of common cause; and they can use precision to draw pictures in your mind. What word choices are particularly powerful in the passage? Are there any patterns worth mentioning?

Of course, these are just a few of the many ideas you can use to get started with shaping and organizing your analysis. It’s a good idea to have a handful of possible questions to consider while reading. This will guide your thinking and can definitely help you out if you suddenly draw a blank.  

Study the Glossary

This is the most straightforward way to guide you as you prepare for the SAT Essay. Khan Academy has compiled an official Essay Glossary of key terms for the essay, and having a solid grasp of this vocabulary will allow you to use the correct words to describe the literary devices you discuss. And beyond that, the glossary can help give you some ideas for possible features in analyzing in your writing.

Where can I find free study materials for the SAT Essay?

Because the new SAT Essay was just rolled out in March 2016, there are not tons of resources yet for preparation. Many of the SAT Essay resources were designed before the new test, rendering them obsolete now. As you look for study materials, make sure that anything you use was created after March 2016 to ensure you are getting relevant information.

Some great resources are:

Sample passages and scored essays from the College Board are available for your review. These will give you an accurate idea of the types of passages you can expect to read and how your response will be assessed. These include examples of high-, medium-, and low-scoring student responses to help you gauge the quality of work that is expected.

Khan Academy tutorials are also available to help you prepare specifically for the SAT Essay. These include video overviews and a message board where students share and discuss strategies.

Finally, don’t skip the Khan Academy Essay Glossary as discussed above. Memorizing key terms from this resource will legitimize your response and help shape your thinking.

If you still have questions about the new SAT Writing and Language Test or you are interested in our full-service, customized SAT tutoring, head over to CollegeVine’s SAT Tutoring Program , where the brightest and most qualified tutors in the industry guide students to an average score increase of 140 points.

To learn more about the SAT, check out these CollegeVine posts:

• ACT vs SAT/SAT Subject Tests
• Are PSAT Scores Related to SAT Scores?
• What Should I Bring to My SAT?
• A Guide to the New SAT
• The CollegeVine Guide to SAT Scores: All Your Questions Answered
• How to Register For Your SATs

Want to know how your SAT score impacts your chances of acceptance to your dream schools? Our free Chancing Engine will not only help you predict your odds, but also let you know how you stack up against other applicants, and which aspects of your profile to improve. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to gain access to our Chancing Engine and get a jumpstart on your college strategy!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the college board has ended the sat essay.

SAT Logistics

On January 19th, 2021, the CollegeBoard announced that it would stop offering the optional SAT Essay after June 2021. 

This is a big change, and students are curious about how this may impact the college admissions process. In this article, we’ll cover these new changes to the SAT Essay testing process and help you understand what they mean for you. 

Here’s what you need to know. 

The College Board No Longer Offers the SAT Essay

As of June 2021, the College Board will no longer offer the SAT Essay to high school students. That means high schoolers will no longer be able to schedule or take the SAT Essay exam after the 2021 June SAT date (June 5, 2021). 

There’s one exception to the no-more-SAT-Essay rule. If you’re required to take the SAT Essay as part of the high school graduation requirements for your state, you may still have to take the essay test! 

States that require students to take the SAT to graduate also participate in SAT School Days . SAT School Days is when students are able to take the SAT for free during...well, a school day! The College Board will continue to administer the SAT Essay to students on School Days in participating states. 

There’s a good chance that these states may drop the SAT Essay requirement in the future. Be sure to check with your high school administrators or guidance counselors for the most up-to-date information on whether you have to take the SAT Essay to graduate. 

SAT Essay Options for Currently Registered Students

If you’re already scheduled to take the SAT Essay exam in 2021, you have a few options going forward. 

First, if you've already registered for the SAT with Essay in March, May, or June of 2021, you can still take the essay test!  You can write your essay, have it scored, and send it to your colleges...no changes necessary. 

But you might decide you no longer need to take the SAT Essay as a result of these new changes. The College Board is letting students who’ve already registered for the SAT Essay cancel their registrations free of charge. 

To do this, just log into your College Board online account and cancel the essay! In order to avoid any additional charges, make sure you cancel your SAT Essay test prior to the registration deadline. 

Why End the SAT Essay? 

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was a tough year for both high school students and the College Board. Not only were SAT tests cancelled repeatedly, many universities dropped the SAT requirement entirely for 2020-2021 ...and in some cases, beyond . 

In their official statement about dropping the SAT Essay test, the College Board acknowledged how hard circumstances have been for high school students because of the pandemic. The College Board explains that by dropping the SAT Essay, they're helping to “reduce demands on students” both now and in the future. 

While the desire to help students is sincere, experts point out that the College Board may have made this decision for more practical reasons as well. In his article for Forbes , journalist Akil Bello points out that most universities don't require SAT Essay scores as part of the admissions process. That means the SAT Essay has been optional for most college-bound students.

As a result, many students had already stopped taking the SAT Essay —in 2020, only 57% of SAT test takers also took the essay portion of the exam. So the College Board may have dropped the SAT Essay for financial and operational reasons, too. 

What Does This Change Mean for Students? 

Starting in June 2021, students taking the SAT will no longer be able to take the SAT Essay exam (unless it’s part of an SAT School Days requirement). 

Not being able to take the SAT Essay is most impactful for students who’d planned to use their essay scores to make their applications stand out. For instance, if you’d hoped your essay score would help overcome a low SAT Math score —or even a less-than-stellar GPA—then you’ll have to make your college application stand out in other ways. We recommend making sure your application has a spike , but you can also add extracurricular activities to your resume, boost your GPA , and raise your SAT score !

Additionally, if your college required the SAT Essay in the past, you may see some differences in the admissions process. Some schools may simply drop the essay requirement, while other schools may ask you to submit additional writing samples to fulfill that requirement. 

The same will be true for departments that used the SAT Essay to determine whether to admit students . Students applying to degree programs that involve lots of writing—like English, History, or Journalism—may end up having to submit additional samples, or even take a department-specific placement test. 

But what if the colleges you’re applying to never required the SAT Essay? If your dream school didn’t require the SAT Essay or consider SAT Essay scores, this change won’t really affect you. The admissions processes at these schools aren’t impacted by the College Board’s new policies, so your chances of getting in are the same as before the College Board’s announcement. 

Our advice? Check with your potential schools to see how the new SAT Essay policies will affect your admissions process and chances. Admissions counselors will be happy to help you out! 

What’s Next? 

• Now that the SAT Essay test is going away, you’ll need to think of new ways to make your college application stand out. Here are seven things that look amazing on college apps. 
• Another great way to stand out from the crowd? Make a perfect score on the SAT . That’s not an impossible goal if you follow our advice to getting a perfect score. 
• Maybe you’re new to the SAT in general. Don’t worry! Here’s a primer on the SAT to get you started. 

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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The Optional SAT Essay: What to Know

Tackling this section of the SAT requires preparation and can boost some students' college applications.

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Even though an increasing number of colleges are dropping standardized test requirements, students who must write the SAT essay can still stand to gain from doing so.

Although the essay portion of the SAT became optional in 2016, many students still chose to write it to demonstrate strong or improved writing skills to prospective colleges.

In June 2021, the College Board opted to discontinue the SAT essay. Now, only students in a few states and school districts still have access to — and must complete — the SAT essay. This requirement applies to some students in the SAT School Day program, for instance, among other groups.

How Colleges Use SAT, ACT Results

Tiffany Sorensen Sept. 14, 2020

Whether or not to write the SAT essay is not the biggest decision you will have to make in high school, but it is certainly one that requires thought on your part. Here are three things you should know about the 50-minute SAT essay as you decide whether to complete it:

• To excel on the SAT essay, you must be a trained reader.
• The SAT essay begs background knowledge of rhetoric and persuasive writing.
• A growing number of colleges are dropping standardized test requirements.

To Excel on the SAT Essay, You Must Be a Trained Reader

The SAT essay prompt never comes unaccompanied. On the contrary, it follows a text that is about 700 words long or approximately one page. Before test-takers can even plan their response, they must carefully read and – ideally – annotate the passage.

The multifaceted nature of the SAT essay prompt can be distressing to students who struggle with reading comprehension. But the good news is that this prompt is highly predictable: It always asks students to explain how the author builds his or her argument. In this case, "how” means which rhetorical devices are used, such as deductive reasoning, metaphors, etc.

Luckily, the author’s argument is usually spelled out in the prompt itself. For instance, consider this past SAT prompt : “Write an essay in which you explain how Paul Bogard builds an argument to persuade his audience that natural darkness should be preserved.”

Due to the essay prompt’s straightforward nature, students should read the passage with an eye toward specific devices used by the author rather than poring over “big ideas.” In tour SAT essay, aim to analyze at least two devices, with three being even better.

The SAT Essay Begs Background Knowledge of Rhetoric and Persuasive Writing

Since your SAT essay response must point to specific rhetorical devices that the author employs to convince the reader, you should make it a point to intimately know 10-15 common ones. The more familiar you are with rhetorical devices, the faster you will become at picking them out as you read texts.

Once you have read the passage and identified a handful of noteworthy rhetorical devices, you should apply many of the same essay-writing techniques you already use in your high school English classes.

For instance, you should start by brainstorming to see which devices you have the most to say about. After that, develop a concise thesis statement, incorporate quotes from the text, avoid wordiness and other infelicities of writing, close with an intriguing conclusion, and do everything else you could imagine your English teacher advising you to do.

Remember to always provide evidence from the text to support your claims. Finally, leave a few minutes at the end to review your essay for mistakes.

A Growing Number of Colleges Are Dropping Standardized Test Requirements

In recent years, some of America’s most prominent colleges and universities – including Ivy League institutions like Harvard University in Massachusetts, Princeton University in New Jersey and Yale University in Connecticut – have made submission of ACT and SAT scores optional.

While this trend began as early as 2018, the upheaval caused by COVID-19 has prompted many other schools to adopt a more lenient testing policy, as well.

Advocates for educational fairness have long expressed concerns that standardized admissions tests put underprivileged students at a disadvantage. In light of the coronavirus pandemic , which restricted exam access for almost all high school students, colleges have gotten on board with this idea by placing more emphasis on other factors in a student’s application.

To assess writing ability in alternative ways, colleges now place more emphasis on students’ grades in language-oriented subjects, as well as college application documents like the personal statement .

The fact that more colleges are lifting their ACT/SAT requirement does not imply that either test or any component of it is now obsolete. Students who must write the SAT essay can still stand to gain from doing so, especially those who wish to major in a writing-intensive field. The essay can also demonstrate a progression or upward trajectory in writing skills.

The SAT essay can give a boost to the college applications of the few students to whom it is still available. If the requirement applies to you, be sure to learn more about the SAT essay and practice it often as you prepare for your upcoming SAT.

13 Test Prep Tips for SAT and ACT Takers

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Stressed about getting into college? College Admissions Playbook, authored by Varsity Tutors , offers prospective college students advice on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses, SAT and ACT exams and the college application process. Varsity Tutors, an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report, is a live learning platform that connects students with personalized instruction to accelerate academic achievement. The company's end-to-end offerings also include mobile learning apps, online learning environments and other tutoring and test prep-focused technologies. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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CollegeBoard

Sat essay view for colleges and other institutions help, how do i access students' essays, how do i log in, how do i sign out, what is my user id and/or password, what if i forgot my user id and/or password, whose contact information from my institution should i provide, how can i update my institution's contact information, can i be notified by email when students' essays can be viewed, where do i find a student's essay locator id, how do i look up another student's essay, how do i view the essay score along with the essay, how are essays scored, how do students provide my institution access to their essays, can my institution receive students' essays in batches, how do i sign up to receive batch essay files, will i be alerted when new batch essay files are available, in what format are the batch files, how do i access batch delivery files, is there any kind of index with batch files, what is contained in the error log.

Images of student essays will be available from the College Board to supplement a student's score report. An individual essay locator ID will appear on each student's score report. Admissions staff can use the essay locator ID to view and/or print an applicant's essay image. Colleges will have access to images of essays from every regular administration taken by the student.

Back to top

All institutions were sent a user ID and password in April 2005. Enter your user ID and password when prompted to gain access to the website. If you forgot your user ID and/or password, please contact Code Control at 609 771-7091 .

To end your session, click on "Log Out." This link appears in the top right corner of the screen under the name of your institution.

A mailing containing a user ID and password, along with detailed instructions, was sent to colleges in April 2005. A user ID and password will allow access to the individual student essays.

If you forgot your user ID and/or password, please contact Code Control at 609 771-7091.

The contact name and email address you provide will be used for essay inquiries and essay lookup communications only. You should enter the information of a person who will be responsible for communications about receiving essays, including information about passwords.

If you wish to update your institution's contact information, please contact Code Control at 609 771-7091.

When you sign in for the first time, you will be prompted to enter contact information including an email address. You will also be able to choose to have notification emailed when a student's essay is available for viewing. Email notifications will be sent weekly, and you may also receive daily emails with rush score delivery. You may already receive email notification with Internet Score Delivery, but these notification emails are separate.

The essay locator ID can be found on the top right corner of a paper score report, or in position 500-509 in an electronic data layout.

If you are already viewing a student's essay, you can go to another student's essay by entering the essay locator ID for that student in the Essay Locator ID box, which can be found on the right side of the screen on the Essay Viewer page.

You can choose to view or hide the essay score when you view a student's essay. Select either the "Show Scores" button, which will show the score, or the "Hide Scores" button, which will hide the score, on the Essay Viewer page.

Each essay is scored independently by two qualified readers, on a scale of 1 to 6 by each reader, with the combined score for both readers ranging from 2 to 12. (Essays not written on the essay assignment will receive a score of zero.) If the two readers' scores differ by more than one point, a third reader scores the essay. View the SAT Essay Scoring Guide .

When a student sends your institution an official score report, they also provide you with permission to view a copy of their essay. Just as all previous SAT scores are reported when students send you their scores, all previously written essays are also reported. Please encourage all students to send official score reports to your institution or you will not have online access to their essay .

Colleges can choose to receive batches of essays in addition to the individual lookup option. Batch essay files from the March, May, and June administrations were made available for batch download in August 2005. Batch essays are available on the Web after each SAT administration on an ongoing basis.

Institutions can sign up to receive batch delivery of essays with the annual score report options mailing that is sent to institutions in June. Institutions can also sign up for batch delivery of essays by calling Code Control at 609 771-7091.

Yes. When you sign up to receive batch essays, you are required to provide an email address. You will receive an email when a batch of essays is available for download.

Batch files are in PDF format. When you sign up to receive batch files, you can also choose to receive large or small batch essay files. Each small file contains up to 100 essays, and each large file contains up to 500 essays.

You access batch essay files in much the same way you access individual essays. After you log in, click the link to the batch essay files. On screen, you will see a list of your batches by test administration or by the week in which they were sent. Each contains the batch essay files from that SAT administration or from that week. You will receive an email when a batch of essays is available for download.

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The error log contains all the essay locator ids in which the essay image could not be provided by the College Board.

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The SAT is now digital for the first time. One test expert says the new format makes the test easier.

• A new digital SAT is now being offered for the first time. 
• The test is shorter, adaptive, and tests real-world skills.
• One test expert says it's easier than past versions but clarifies it's still not an easy test. 

In March, the first US high school students took the SAT exam — digitally.

This switch to digital comes as many top-tier colleges, such as Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown, are reversing their decision to be exam-optional — a trend that started during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a recent study suggests that test scores actually do predict academic performance and college success — better than high school grades.

Shaan Patel — the founder and CEO of Prep Expert, with more than two decades of experience with the popular college entrance exam — told Business Insider the test will be significantly different than in the past. It may even be easier.

The digital SAT has some content changes

For starters, the digital test will be shorter and adaptive. That means the test will get harder as the student progresses through it, but the level of difficulty will depend on how they performed on earlier questions.

According to Patel, the digital SAT is also more "student-friendly" than previous years.

For example, in the past, there was a section where students couldn't use the calculator, but on the digital SAT, Patel said a calculator could be used on all the questions.

"There's even a digital calculator built into the testing application, in case you don't have a graphing calculator," Patel said.

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In addition, the reading passages are a lot shorter in the new exam. The essay section has also been dissolved, and the grammar questions have now been integrated with the reading section.

"So it really tests your reading and writing together, which I think will be a welcome change for most people," Patel said.

Plus, there are new question types where students read notes and decipher what is most relevant.

"I think that's a super useful skill in the real world where you get a long email, and you have to sift through the important data," Patel said.

He added students no longer have to memorize difficult, obscure vocabulary words that were once required.

The digital SAT is easier

"The new question types are actually testing students in a much more real-world manner than the previous versions of the SAT," Patel said. "Overall, this test will be more relevant to real-world skills . So, I'm optimistic the changes will be good."

He said, in that regard, the SAT will be easier.

"But, I want to be careful about saying it's easy," Patel said. "I don't think it's easy because what's going to happen is with the adaptive testing structure…you are going to see harder questions as you go along, even though you're going to see fewer questions."

Prep for the SAT shouldn't change all that much

Patel recommended that all students download the College Board's Bluebook app , where they can take practice tests and familiarize themselves with the new adaptive feature.

"They must get used to not letting their brain become overused at the end of the test since that is when most students will encounter the hardest questions," Patel said.

But the most important piece of advice remained the same: prep early.

"I usually recommend getting started in 10th grade so that by the time the fall of 11th grade rolls around, you'll be ready to knock the PSAT out of the park," Patel said, "because the PSAT, especially this new digital PSAT , is more similar to the digital SAT than ever."

Watch: The SAT is getting a massive overhaul — and they’re ditching one of the most annoying parts

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Services were created to help brilliant students to proofread and make necessary edits in their essays. Usually, people who work there have degrees, diplomas and proper education, as well as experience in the tasks of such kind. Essay help doesn't involve cheating or making writing for you.  

The best part of service is its globalization. You can sit in one state and get a help from best essay writing service located on the other side of the country. Surprisingly, you will find yourself released from stress immediately after assigning task to expert. They are ready to perform any kind of job depending on what you want. If your text " write my essay for me ", it would be crafted from a scratch. If you text "Edit my work", it would be reviewed and made according to requirements.  

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However, it seems very simple just to open Google and contact service for making life easier, plenty of people have second thoughts about the legacy of this process. We want to assure everyone that seeking editor or help to proofread paper is totally normal. You might have given it to a teacher or college counsel anyway, but instead you decided to take a huge step forward and ask experts to help you.  

First-ever digital SAT exam scores are out. How did NJ do?

4-minute read.

Scores from the first-ever digital SAT exam, administered on March 9 across the U.S., are in for thousands of anxious American teenagers.

"Results are flooding in," said Philip Bates, a former high school principal who is director of content at the Texas-based SAT tutoring firm UWorld.

Its too early to talk trends, Bates said, but one perk of the digital SAT is the quick turnaround in score delivery — between 10 days and two weeks. "Students don't have to stress about scores for weeks and weeks," he said.

Bates said Friday that he was seeing a range of results.

"You're seeing some students who are super happy and they've raised their scores, you're seeing some who dropped their scores compared to the old test, and some the same," he said.

Results have most to do with how students prepared for the digital test, Bates said. "I would speculate that if you have a student who used old preparation and wasn't looking at the new style of test, their scores probably dropped, because of how the content is presented, and the style of particularly the verbal questions is so different," he said.

"Students who increased their scores probably did a lot of practicing with online content, instead of paper, and got used, for example, to the new format of the test, including using the in-app Desmos calculator for math," Bates said.

Emotional reactions filled an online Reddit thread discussing the score releases for the March 9 digital test, including a survey comparing scores on the College Board's sample tests and the actual one. One mom said about her daughter, "she & everyone she knows agrees that the Math Mod 2 was INSANELY hard, so we weren’t surprised when her official math score was below her practice numbers."

More than 200,000 students took the digital SAT at 3,000 test centers in 173 countries on March 9, the College Board said in a press release. Among SAT Weekend digital test takers, 99.8% successfully completed their exam and submitted their results. Over 400,000 students took the digital SAT, PSAT 10 and PSAT 8/9 during the school day that week, the board said.

Because the College Board published only four digital tests for preparation, some tutors used digital tests from major test prep companies to further prepare their students. "The practice material from test prep companies we were using was not commensurate with the difficulty level of the College Board's practice tests in both math and English," said Sarah Burton of Aspen Tutoring in Ridgewood, who runs the center with English teacher Meaghan Ozaydin.

One New Jersey test prep educator who did not want to be named until they took a more thorough look at the results for their clients said the adaptive nature of the math portion of the digital SAT saw some students run out of time, unlike with the previous paper versions. All-digital test takers got a harder module of math questions in the second portion of the test if they did well in the universal first module that all test takers took.

It's too early to tell how scores compare with the paper version, but dramatic changes to the test in its digital version have made for jitters and excitement as results come in.

New adaptive math module, shorter test overall

The biggest change in the digital version was the adaptive second module in math, which was harder or easier depending on how well a student performed in the first math module. Other changes included a shorter test length overall, shorter reading passages in the English portion, and the built-in digital calculator in the testing app.

The adaptive math portion caused many students to worry. Did the harder module mean they could expect high scores? Or did it mean they messed up?

Also unexpected is the College Board's inclusion of school, district and state averages for the digital score. If you're a student viewing your score right now in New Jersey, the College Board provides averages of scores for comparison.

New Jersey's average score was 1171

New Jersey's average score was 1171 on the first digital SAT. The U.S. average score was 1166, and the average for all test takers, including international ones, was 1176. These numbers are taken from a score report delivered to a student who took the test on March 9. Scores from paper tests did not provide this at-a-glance comparison.

Disappointed with your scores? Definitely retake the test, said Bates, of UWorld. This is important because many top-tier colleges are reversing their positions on the SAT and asking students to submit scores in a new, test-flexible college application format, a shift from the post-pandemic trend of test-optional applications.

Students typically take the SAT twice or more so they can "superscore" their math and English results by adding up the best scores for each subject for college applications.

The SAT is coming back at some colleges. It’s stressing everyone out.

A patchwork of admissions test policies is wreaking havoc on students, parents and college admissions consultants.

A California mother drove 80 miles this month to find an SAT testing center with an open seat where her high school junior could take the exam. During college tours this spring, a teen recalled hearing some would-be applicants groan when admissions staffers announced they could not guarantee test-optional policies would continue.

And across the country, college counselors are fielding questions from teenagers alarmed, encouraged or simply confused by what seems like the return of the standardized test in admissions — maybe? Sort of? In some places, but not in others?

“You could be expecting and preparing for a certain way to apply to a college and present yourself — but then they change it mid-application process,” said Kai Talbert, a 17-year-old high school junior in Pennsylvania. “That’s really confusing. It can set back a lot of people.”

Colleges nationwide have been updating their coronavirus-era policies on standardized testing, which many dropped when the pandemic shut down in-person testing centers. Some of the most selective schools are declaring they will require tests again — including, across the last two months, Dartmouth College and Yale and Brown universities. Others, such as the University of Chicago and Columbia University, won’t. And still others have not yet picked a permanent policy: Princeton, Stanford, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania have said they will remain test-optional for another year or two, and Harvard University plans to keep its test-optional policy at least through the 2025-26 application cycle.

Public universities have veered in different directions, too: The University of Tennessee system requires tests. The University of Michigan will be test-optional. The University of California system is test-blind, meaning schools refuse to consider SAT or ACT scores for admissions.

The patchwork of policies is wreaking havoc on applicants, parents and college admissions consultants nationwide, who are being forced to recalculate where and how they are willing to apply — or what to tell anxious teenagers about whether to test, retest or skip testing entirely — as decisions keep rolling out in real time.

Laurie Kopp Weingarten, founder of One-Stop College Counseling in New Jersey, said she has a new response whenever a student gives her a list of their school targets. She starts by going down the list, school by school, to review each institution’s testing rules and whether those seem likely to change.

Taking a breath, Weingarten rattled off a summary of the different testing requirements in place at every Ivy League school. It took her three minutes.

“Even just saying it, it sounds like insanity to me, and then we’re expecting kids to understand this?” Weingarten said. “Colleges should really analyze the data, come up with a decision and stop changing their mind.”

The shifting testing expectations are among many changes roiling college admissions this year. Colleges are still grappling with the fallout from the landmark Supreme Court ruling that ended the use of race-based affirmative action in admissions. Many are undertaking an array of experiments in response to the decision in a bid to maintain diverse admitted classes — ending legacy preferences in some cases, adding essay prompts on adversity or identity in others, or increasing outreach in low-income areas.

And the disastrous rollout of a federal financial aid form that was supposed to simplify the notoriously difficult process has left students, parents and schools scrambling .

This is the most hectic and distressing admissions cycle in recent memory, said Jennifer Nuechterlein, a college and career counselor at a New Jersey high school. She laid special blame on schools that reinstated testing mandates in the past two months, some of which affect the high school juniors who will begin applying in the fall. This class of teens will have to take the SAT or ACT, should they decide to do so, within the next six months.

“Students can’t just test overnight,” Nuechterlein said. “There are students who want to prep, there are students who are not math- or English-ready. ... Students are going to be unprepared.”

For the most ambitious, high-achieving students, the tests are another stressful hurdle to clear as they apply to the most selective colleges. And for many other students, the test scores — even if not required for admission — are mandatory if they want to qualify for some financial aid programs or, on some campuses, certain degree programs.

Critics of standardized tests have argued that they mirror, or exacerbate, societal inequities, in part because students from unstable homes or with limited resources cannot afford SAT or ACT tutors or testing preparation classes, or may not know of free resources such as Khan Academy . Even before the pandemic, some schools had moved to make the scores optional to avoid creating another barrier for students.

Then the pandemic hit, spurring a crisis response when students literally could not access spaces in which to take standardized tests, said Dominique J. Baker, a University of Delaware associate professor of education and public policy who studies admissions policies.

“There were a number of institutions that never would have chosen to have gone test-optional except the pandemic made them,” she said. “Those institutions, by and large, are going back to requiring test scores.”

MIT, Georgetown University and the University of Florida are among schools that quickly chose to reinstate the requirements, with MIT announcing the change in 2022. Many others have spent the years since the virus arrived studying what effect going test-optional had on their admitted classes.

At Brown, Yale and Dartmouth, officials said they had found something surprising: Considering test scores would help them identify more promising applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds, not fewer. After looking at their own data, leaders at the three Ivy League schools say they concluded that SAT and ACT scores are highly predictive of students’ academic performance in college, more so than high school grades. They also found that some less-advantaged students withheld their scores when sharing them would have boosted their chances.

Depriving admissions officers of SAT and ACT scores meant they were less able to evaluate an applicant’s chances of thriving at Brown, Provost Francis J. Doyle III said in an interview this month .

“Our analysis suggested our admissions could be more effective if we brought back testing as an instrument,” Doyle said.

The University of Texas at Austin is also choosing to require testing again, the school announced earlier this month. Jay Hartzell, the school’s president, said he and others worried the cost and preparation associated with the tests could keep students from applying. But about 90 percent of UT Austin applicants in the latest round took the SAT even though it was optional, Hartzell said. And the school found that students who declined to submit scores were less successful once enrolled.

John Friedman, a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Brown, said he wouldn’t be surprised if more of those highly selective schools reinstate a testing requirement. He was one of the authors of the study from Opportunity Insights, a nonprofit at Harvard University, on standardized test scores and student performance at a dozen “Ivy-plus” universities.

“It’s not just about the test scores being a good predictor,” he said. “We show in the paper that students who attend a school, having been admitted without a test score, perform at the bottom of the distribution.” He said schools should look at their own data to determine their policy.

Nonetheless, most schools nationwide will probably remain test-optional, predicted Angel Pérez, the chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. For many institutions, he said, the policy has been a huge success, bumping up the number of applicants and diversifying admitted classes.

He added that most American high-schoolers are applying to schools that admit nearly all applicants, to public schools or to colleges close to home, he said: “So the majority of students aren’t going to be impacted.”

Morehouse College is among those maintaining a test-optional policy, which the historically Black college adopted in 2020. Since going test-optional, Morehouse has seen an increased number of applicants and an increased acceptance rate from admitted students, said Michael Gumm, Morehouse’s director of admissions and recruitment.

The majority of Morehouse applicants choose not to submit scores, Gumm said, and more students are completing their applications than in the past. He said Morehouse is looking for leaders, so essays and letters of recommendation carry a lot of weight.

Gumm said he often preaches to students: “Your test scores do not make you who you are.”

But for some students, the tests remain a priority. Alina Bunch, a 16-year-old high school junior in Texas, said that even when she saw schools dropping test requirements, she never altered her plan to take the ACT. The exam, she says, is a way to demonstrate determination and academic rigor.

She thinks it’s generally a good thing that schools are bringing back testing requirements, because they can function as a mechanism of standardization in a sometimes subjective admissions process. She does fear the effects of reinstating test requirements for students who cannot afford tutoring.

But for herself — after taking a summer course to prepare for the ACT and scoring high on the exam — she has no real worries. “It was never a question for me, of whether I should do it or not,” Alina said.

Many students pursued similar strategies, continuing to take standardized tests throughout the test-optional trend. After a dramatic drop in 2020 spurred by the sudden closure of test sites, the number of students taking the SAT nationally has risen every year since, per the College Board, and reached 1.9 million for the class of 2023. That’s about 300,000 short of the last pre-pandemic total, when 2.2 million members of the class of 2019 sat for the exam — the largest-ever group to do so.

Joan Koven, who heads college consulting company Academic Access in Pennsylvania, said she never expected standardized testing to suffer a real drop in popularity.

“The ACTs and the SATs are Burger King and McDonald’s,” she said. “They’re not going away.”

But in some places, counselors wish they would. Priscilla Grijalva, a high school counselor in California’s San Jacinto Unified School District, said the elimination of test requirements in the UC system and California State University campuses was a godsend for the nearly 300 students she works with every year, a mix of White, Black and Latino teens, most of whom are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

In the past, many of her students applied only to community colleges. But now she has seen a sharp rise in those willing to aim for state universities.

“It has changed our students’ mindsets,” Grijalva said. “Now it’s like, ‘Hey, I can do this.’ They’re more confident in their leadership and their grades.”

But the flurry of recent announcements from schools altering their testing rules has proved alarming, she said. Her students “do feel the pressure coming back,” she said. “They’re starting to talk.”

Claire Elkin, 16, overheard some of this nervous chatter when she was touring colleges this spring with her family — making visits to places including the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At every school, recalled Claire, who took the ACT and intends to submit her scores, admissions tour leaders said something like: “Yeah, we’re test-optional now, but we can’t guarantee anything for you.”

Every time, the crowds of hopefuls around Claire broke into murmurs that ranged from anguished to angry, she said. She remembered one family whose daughters seemed especially upset, spurring the mother to jump into emergency action trying to calm the girls as the admissions presentation continued.

“A lot of kids my age can’t set a path right now for what they should be prioritizing when they’re applying for schools,” Claire said. “So there is definitely more panic.”

An earlier version of this article included incorrect information about the rise in the number of students who have taken the SAT since a drop sparked by the pandemic. The number of students taking the test reached 1.9 million for the class of 2023, about 300,000 fewer than for the class of 2019. The article has been corrected.

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The college board is dumbing down its sat test again — doing no one any favors.

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A high schooler could have predicted this: On Feb. 5, Dartmouth College conceded that, after four years of admitting students in the dark, it needs  mandatory standardized testing  after all.

Weeks later Yale and, on Tuesday, Brown  followed the lead  of their smaller Ivy League sibling.

Other top-ranked universities — MIT, Georgetown, University of Florida, Georgia Tech, Purdue University, the US Air Force Academy, West Point, etc. — are already test-mandatory.

It’s good to hear about the flip-backs, but there’s troubling news, too: The testing itself is being dumbed down, even as a new digital-only version becomes mandatory on Saturday.

Why are schools returning to standardized testing? That’s obvious: School grades are  inflated to the point of uselessness , essays can be bought online ( or generated by AI ), and teacher recommendations are often just a reflection of applicants’ ability to please.

Those disgruntled with what standardized tests expose will continue to recite the usual invalid arguments against them, but even back in 2014, world-renowned cognitive scientist  Steven Pinker showed that SAT scores , “as far up the upper tail as you go, predict a vast range of intellectual, practical, and artistic accomplishments.”

In “a large sample of precocious teenagers identified solely by high performance on the SAT,” he added, these kids “not only excelled in academia, technology, medicine, and business” when they grew up, “but won outsize recognition for their novels, plays, poems, paintings, sculptures, and productions in dance, music, and theater.”

It’d be tempting to feel vindicated and add this to the left’s ever-growing list of “I told you so” tales, from #DefundthePolice to sanctuary cities.

But wait. Just as top colleges are getting courageous enough to say they really do need standardized tests to identify top students, the College Board, maker of the SAT, is sabotaging itself.

On Saturday, it’ll introduce “digital adaptive testing” for the SAT in the United States.

The test will become online-only and “adaptive”: Depending how a student performs in the first half, different questions will be presented in the second half.

By estimating each student’s ability early, the test can subsequently skip questions that are too difficult or too easy, with corresponding adjustment in scoring, thereby becoming, it is claimed, more efficient.

The alarming problem is its assurance that in developing digital adaptive testing, “we remove items that show significant DIF (Differential Item Functioning) by race/ethnicity, gender, or English as first language in alignment with industry best standards.”

In other words, the board aims to  dumb down   the test  to reduce outcome differences by race and gender.

Indeed, DIF has become an albatross to testing in recent decades as “equity,” or imposed equal outcomes by race, became a sacred cow.

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Consequently, educators have noted a stealth dumbing down of the SAT, on top of more publicized dumbing-downs like the removal of analogies in 2005 and  penalties for guessing  in 2014.

This dumbing down caused a “ceiling effect,” whereby top and merely solid students — those whom selective colleges most need to tell apart — are no longer differentiated by the test: They all got top scores!

Thus, at least half of Harvard students’ SAT math scores lie in the narrow 10-point range between 790 and 800, well within the SAT’s standard error of measurement, so that the SAT in effect says they scored the same.

Yet there is huge variation in mathematical aptitudes at Harvard, accommodated by 9 different starting math courses, from Math M (high-school math) to Math 55 (described as the hardest undergraduate math class in the country).

SAT’s ceiling effect is just as bad at Stanford (half the students also scoring between 790 and 800 in Math) and MIT (half scoring exactly 800 in math).

Rooting out hard questions just because they correlate with race isn’t the College Board’s only “equity” agenda: In 2019, it introduced its Environmental Context Dashboard, a facially race-neutral racial proxy nonetheless meant to help colleges achieve melanin diversity.

That offering was withdrawn under  withering criticism , but the company is quietly marketing a reincarnation, Landscape.

The College Board serves an important public purpose.

Colleges, especially top ones, need the SAT to identify students who will give America the next generation of innovations, discoveries and medical cures.

The SAT was made to facilitate academic meritocracy, and it did that well.

To stay true to its core mission, the College Board must stand by that mission.

Wai Wah Chin is the founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute.  

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How the SAT Changed My Life

By Emi Nietfeld

Ms. Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “Acceptance.”

This month, the University of Texas, Austin, joined the wave of selective schools reversing Covid-era test-optional admissions policies, once again requiring applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores.

Many colleges have embraced the test-optional rule under the assumption that it bolsters equity and diversity, since higher scores are correlated with privilege. But it turns out that these policies harmed the teenagers they were supposed to help. Many low-income and minority applicants withheld scores that could have gotten them in, wrongly assuming that their scores were too low, according to an analysis by Dartmouth. More top universities are sure to join the reversal. This is a good thing.

I was one of the disadvantaged youths who are often failed by test-optional policies, striving to get into college while in foster care and homeless. We hear a lot about the efforts of these elite schools to attract diverse student bodies and about debates around the best way to assemble a class. What these conversations overlook is the hope these tests offer students who are in difficult situations.

For many of us, standardized tests provided our one shot to prove our potential, despite the obstacles in our lives or the untidy pasts we had. We found solace in the objectivity of a hard number and a process that — unlike many things in our lives — we could control. I will always feel tenderness toward the Scantron sheets that unlocked higher education and a better life.

Growing up, I fantasized about escaping the chaos of my family for the peace of a grassy quad. Both my parents had mental health issues. My adolescence was its own mess. Over two years I took a dozen psychiatric drugs while attending four different high school programs. At 14, I was sent to a locked facility where my education consisted of work sheets and reading aloud in an on-site classroom. In a life skills class, we learned how to get our G.E.D.s. My college dreams began to seem like delusions.

Then one afternoon a staff member handed me a library copy of “Barron’s Guide to the ACT .” I leafed through the onionskin pages and felt a thunderclap of possibility. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without permission, let alone take Advanced Placement Latin or play water polo or do something else that would impress elite colleges. But I could teach myself the years of math I’d missed while switching schools and improve my life in this one specific way.

After nine months in the institution, I entered foster care. I started my sophomore year at yet another high school, only to have my foster parents shuffle my course load at midyear, when they decided Advanced Placement classes were bad for me. In part because of academic instability like this, only 3 percent to 4 percent of former foster youth get a four-year college degree.

Later I bounced between friends’ sofas and the back seat of my rusty Corolla, using my new-to-me SAT prep book as a pillow. I had no idea when I’d next shower, but I could crack open practice problems and dip into a meditative trance. For those moments, everything was still, the terror of my daily life softened by the fantasy that my efforts might land me in a dorm room of my own, with endless hot water and an extra-long twin bed.

Standardized tests allowed me to look forward, even as every other part of college applications focused on the past. The song and dance of personal statements required me to demonstrate all the obstacles I’d overcome while I was still in the middle of them. When shilling my trauma left me gutted and raw, researching answer elimination strategies was a balm. I could focus on equations and readings, like the scholar I wanted to be, rather than the desperate teenager that I was.

Test-optional policies would have confounded me, but in the 2009-10 admissions cycle, I had to submit my scores; my fellow hopefuls and I were all in this together, slogging through multiple-choice questions until our backs ached and our eyes crossed.

The hope these exams instilled in me wasn’t abstract: It manifested in hundreds of glossy brochures. After I took the PSAT in my junior year, universities that had received my score flooded me with letters urging me to apply. For once, I felt wanted. These marketing materials informed me that the top universities offered generous financial aid that would allow me to attend free. I set my sights higher, despite my guidance counselor’s lack of faith.

When I took the actual SAT, I was ashamed of my score. Had submitting it been optional, I most likely wouldn’t have done it, because I suspected my score was lower than the prep-school applicants I was up against (exactly what Dartmouth found in the analysis that led it to reinstate testing requirements). When you grow up the way I did, it’s difficult to believe that you are ever good enough.

When I got into Harvard, it felt like a miracle splitting my life into a before and after. My exam preparation paid off on campus — it was the only reason I knew geometry or grammar — and it motivated me to tackle new, difficult topics. I majored in computer science, having never written a line of code. Though a career as a software engineer seemed far-fetched, I used my SAT study strategies to prepare for technical interviews (in which you’re given one or more problems to solve) that landed me the stable, lucrative Google job that catapulted me out of financial insecurity.

I’m not the only one who feels affection for these tests. At Harvard, I met other students who saw these exams as the one door they could unlock that opened into a new future. I was lucky that the tests offered me hope all along, that I could cling to the promise that one day I could bubble in a test form and find myself transported into a better life — the one I lead today.

Emi Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “ Acceptance .” Previously, she was a software engineer at Google and Facebook.

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