Academic Writing Skills in College Admissions Essays: Exploring Their Implications for Admissions Decisions and First-Semester Grade Point Average.

This article investigates the role of academic writing skills, as measured by the automated writing evaluation (AWE) system e-rater, in college admissions essays and their associations with admissions decisions and first-semester grade point averages (GPAs) at a selective U.S. public university. The study found that underrepresented minority (URM) and low-socioeconomic status (SES) applicants generally submitted essays with lower academic writing scores than their peers, yet higher writing scores were more strongly linked to acceptance odds for URM, first-generation, and fee-waiver applicants compared to others. Although academic writing skills positively predicted both admission and first-semester GPA, their predictive power was weaker than that of high school grades and standardized test scores. The findings highlight disparities in writing skills across demographic groups and suggest that improving writing proficiency may enhance college access for disadvantaged students, while also emphasizing the need for further research on essay content and admissions evaluation practices to better understand equity implications.