In lieu of the pandemic, a lot of colleges are relying on the entrance essays rather than ACT/SAT scores. Typically, a college entrance essay will ask a potential student why they want to attend that school, what their goals are, their major, and how they think college will help them reach those goals.
I will say after talking to a few professors and observances online through Social Media, a lot of seniors and potential college applicants struggle with the essay. When asked the reasons why, a lot of professors in academia have said that writing to pass a standardized test, taking real research papers out of high school courses (APA/MLA style), and lack of grammar courses due to standardized testing played a role on it. One common theme that I will also touch base on with teachers is that we are so focused on standardized testing that teachers have to cram writing in at some point. This is a disadvantage to the students who want to attend college but are forced into 080-090 classes due to the lack of writing skills.
However, this is not a full on rant against K-12 educators. I am a K-12 educator myself and can only give so much when educating my little ones. Saying that standardized testing is the main driving force behind the lack of writing skills is not the end all be all. Most teachers though we are trained to teach writing, we opt to get the reading and math skills in to master the standardized test. Writing is usually taught as an afterthought, though there has been some research to show that this could potentially change. However, until it does students will struggle with their writing skills.
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