By Pat Wingert, June 18, 2008 

Ever since the new SAT writing test, featuring a proctored off-the-cuff writing sample, was launched in 2005, it has found few fans.  Students weren’t crazy about having to write a high-stakes essay under time pressure on a randomly assigned topic, or the fact that the new test extended a three-hour college-entrance exam by another 45 minutes.  Meanwhile, college admission offices were reluctant to put much weight in a new test of unknown value that hadn’t been formally validated.