Well, at least they know how the kids feel now: Colleges perplexed by new SAT

In a few weeks, high school students face the prospect of taking the much-publicized new SAT Reasoning Test, which for the first time will require them to write a timed essay. Yet colleges continue to send confusing signals about whether students applying in the fall to attend college must take the new exam.

Some schools, including Harvard, say they will accept scores from either the new test or the old SAT I, which was administered for the last time in January and did not contain a writing section. "If students happened to take the old SAT in the middle of their junior year and did very well, we don't want to have to require the new one," says William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid.