Student Requirements, Placement and Exemption
NMSU’s WP student placement is determined by students’ SAT/ACT scores. Depending on their scores, students are enrolled in ENG 110 (remedial), ENG 111 general, or ENG 111 honors. Multilingual students must take the TOEFL or IELTS exam to place into ENG 111M. Students must have received a 4 or 5 on either English AP exam or a 57+ on the College Level Examination Program subject exam to bypass ENG 111. The SAT/ACT guidelines were in place when Lauren began her position two years ago. She shared, “I have had no role in determining placement into writing classes at NMSU. (Well, actually, I have done one thing, which was to raise the AP score needed to place out of ENGL 111 from 3 to 4. So, as of fall, 2017, students need to get a score of 4 to be excused from 111.) I don’t even know who determined the ACT/SAT requirements for NMSU. I have only been there for less than 2 years. Some of this decision making occurs at state and university levels. What I do know is that these decisions are not made by the writing program. I don’t believe in placement by standardized test score. I think it is an inaccurate means of sorting students.” The SAT/ACT portion of the student placement is enforced outside of the writing program, so though Lauren does not agree with sorting by standardized testing, the tactic is out of her jurisdiction to alter. Lauren further shared that “Of course, I do NOT think scores are an accurate determiner of writing competence. I would be much more inclined to use a holistic measure, like DSP, and evaluate student writing over the summer with a team of GAs, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon (I would also love to offer basic writing courses, but that won’t happen either.) The ACT minimum for placement into 111 is 16 (again, I don’t know who determined this number, but I think it has to do with the university in relation to the State Gen Ed committee. On the other hand, there are lots of mysterious things like this at NMSU about which no one knows the source. People just say: that’s how we’ve always done it.) So, students need a 16 to take 111. This is very low. In comparison, at our peer institutions, they need higher scores. University of New Mexico requires 19; U of Arizona requires 18 (I think; I could be mixing it up with ASU). So, sometimes I feel like many of the students in our mainstream writing courses would be considered basic writers elsewhere….If students get an ACT of 15 or lower, they have to take the developmental ENGL 110 (and even 105 with a low low score) that is offered only at the community colleges.” Royal and Gilles, in “What is Placement”, argue that SAT and ACT tests are “efficient, predictable, and in many cases effective – all very appealing to administrators” (25). And while this may be true and particularly attractive to administration, Royal and Gilles also acknowledge that “standardized tests do not say anything about how your incoming students relate to your courses and your particular faculty: They tell you how your incoming students relate to the national pool of first-year college students” (26). Lauren absolutely agrees with Royal and Gilles, which is why she offers alternative placement testing for students with legitimate reasoning, such as veterans, students who are not directly out of high school, transfer students, etc.
Though student placement is based primarily on SAT/ACT scores and bypassing ENG 111 is based on AP scores, Lauren does at times offer a placement test made by her for special occasion students. She stated that “Sometimes students who got low ACTs will contact me and ask for an alternative placement exam. Our new centralized advising center has encouraged this, but it became an enormous pain for me right away. Students would write to me and tell me why they didn’t want to take 110 and that they just needed me to waive the requirement. Or, they would argue that taking 110 would prevent them from graduating in 4-years. So, now I usually say no. Occasionally, a student will write to me with a really good reason for why they think their ACT is an inaccurate measure of their writing ability, and then I will let that student take an alternative exam. So, I do have an alternative placement essay prompt that I wrote and that I give case-by-case a few times a semester. This is usually used by non-traditional students who don’t have standardized test scores available, usually older students, former military, and some international students.” It is easy to see why this alternative placement would cause an extra burden for Lauren. If every student who placed in ENG 110 due to lower SAT/ACT scores wanted to take Lauren’s placement test, Lauren must interact with these students via email, proctor or find someone to proctor these exams, grade the exam, and perform the administrative tasks necessary to replace them in the system. By reserving this alternate placement exam for students who can clearly and strongly argue why their standardized scores do not reflect their ability, Lauren greatly limits her workload. Transfer students are also offered the placement test if they took ENG 111 or an equivalent course from non-accredited institutions. In “What is Transfer Articulation?”, David Schwalm says that “One job just about every WPA has with regard to transfer articulation is determining course equivalencies for individual students who are not covered by any of the general articulation agreements that the school might have with others” (375). Yet, Schwalm also shares that “There is a tendency to look for reasons not to grant equivalency”, which is not in favor of the students and does not respect their previous work (176). However, Lauren rightfully does not follow this practice by not making transfer students from non-accredited universities automatically have to take ENG 111 at NMSU. Instead, she offers them a placement test that she personally evaluates for their competency in first-year writing. Evaluating these transfer students is in favor of the student, not necessarily the institution, and Schwalm would agree that Lauren’s tactic is admirable.
Through Lauren has less overall control over general student placement guidelines at NMSU, she is more experienced with having authority over student placement at her previous university. She shares that “In contrast, at my former university, Eastern Connecticut State U, where I was Coordinator of First-Year Writing for 7 years, I had much more of a decision-making role in terms of student placement. Keep in mind that ECSU is a much smaller institution, a “regional comprehensive” university. Because we had many fewer students than NMSU, it was possible to do holistic placement. Not that it would be impossible at NMSU (we scored incoming students’ writing samples holistically at University of Massachusetts where I was a grade student—also a large state university writing program). When I arrived at ECSU in 2006, there was an excellent system of “modified directed self placement” being used. During the summers, I would work with a team of faculty to read incoming students’ writing samples and place them. After a few years, this system went online, but it continued to function well. Then, the CT Board of Regents stepped in, and as part of some awful Public Act they designed, we had to start using “multiple measures,” which basically meant that we had to use a standardized test (we used SAT/ACT) with the DSP as a secondary measure. The problem is that universities are already paying College Board for all kinds of things, and the scores are available for them to use as a measure. It is a lot easier and cheaper (you don’t have to hire faculty or grad student readers over the summer) to use scores than to do a holistic placement. And many people (i.e. Board of Regents members, some administrators) will tell you that scores are less subjective. Sadly, many of these decisions are financial (standardized test scores have already been paid for; it costs a lot to hire faculty and students over the summer on additional contracts).” Lauren is well aware of other student placement tactics and their benefits. Though using standardized testing is problematic in many ways, other tactics, such as placement testing, arise issues as well, as outlined in Smith’s “The Importance of Teacher Knowledge in College Composition Placement Testing”, such as unreliable and inconsistent graders who disagree on a student’s placement. Finding the perfect means of evaluating student placement is impossible due to budget and manpower.
Lauren sees the drawbacks to placement by standardized testing and contrasts NMSU’s tactic to ECSU’s. By having the placement into the WP happen outside of the WP, Lauren is given less control over placement tactics; this is obviously problematic and counterintuitive. Lauren said that “At ECSU, I felt that we actually placed our incoming students. Placement felt like an important piece of my work as WPA. At NMSU, I don’t even feel like we place. Students are sorted by their ACT by Admissions (most in the West take ACT unlike in the East where most students take SAT) and so the placement seems automatic. It is done as part of students’ admissions.” A suggested future goal for Lauren is to communicate with Admissions in hopes of bringing first year writing placement into the realm of the WP so that when ready, she may alter the student placement tactic to a measure she prefers.