![]() We chose these two techniques because they are commonly used for analysis of textual data in other evaluative contexts ( 16– 18). To do so, we juxtaposed results from an unsupervised, probabilistic approach using correlated topic modeling (CTM) ( 13, 14) with results from a dictionary-driven analysis using proprietary software Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) ( 15). Given the economic and social benefits of a college degree and the increased demand for admissions to selective colleges and universities ( 7), the controversy surrounding the SAT is likely to persist. Proponents of standardized tests have argued that they enable universal and unbiased measures of academic aptitude and may have salutary effects on fairness in evaluation when used as universal screens ( 1– 4) critics have noted the large body of evidence indicating a strong correlation between SAT scores and socioeconomic background, with some having dubbed the SAT a “wealth test” ( 5, 6). For a century, admission officers have made use of scores on standardized tests (SAT in particular) to assess and compare applicants. The information selective colleges and universities (defined by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as schools that deny admission to at least 20% of applicants) use when evaluating applicants has been a perennial ethical and policy concern in the United States. This analysis shows that essays encode similar information as the SAT and suggests that college admission protocols should attend to how social class is encoded in non-numerical components of applications. We found that essay content and style had stronger correlations to self-reported household income than did SAT scores and that essays explained much of the variance in SAT scores. We quantified essay content using correlated topic modeling and essay style using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. ![]() We used a corpus of 240,000 admission essays submitted by 60,000 applicants to the University of California in November 2016 to measure relationships between the content of admission essays, self-reported household income, and SAT scores. ![]() ![]() There is substantial evidence of the relationship between household income and achievement on the standardized tests often required for college admissions, yet little comparable inquiry considers the essays typically required of applicants to selective U.S. ![]()
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