Longer Essays Mean Higher SAT Scores

Fourteen year-old Milo Beckman didn't think he did well on his SAT the second time around. The reality? Milo actually scored better on his second try. Milo couldn't understand why until he stopped to think about the essay portion of the standardized college entrance exam. The difference between his first and second test was the length of his essay. Milo formed a hypothesis: students who write longer SAT essays score higher.

Apparently, Milo is right. To test his hypothesis, he asked his classmates at Stuyvesant High School in New York City to count how many lines they wrote on their SAT essays and to provide their final test scores. Of the 115 samples Milo collected, nearly all students with higher scores wrote longer essays. The probability of such a strong correlation is less than zero.

Professors at MIT have confirmed Milo's findings. The results are particularly interesting as we consider that more and more colleges are allowing students to opt out of taking the test.

Photo Credit: Leo Preziosi