Writing Placement

Get Ready to Write

To meet graduation requirements, all students must pass an approved English composition course. The placement exams are designed to help you fulfill these requirements by identifying the courses that best match your skills.

Writing Placement Overview

The WSU Writing Program is offering a new Writing Placement Assessment this summer and will use this new assessment for the foreseeable future. Students will no longer sit for a timed, proctored exam. The new assessment uses Qualtrics Surveys to guide students through a series of self-reflection activities and provides a prompt for a short essay that students will write and upload into the survey. The full response, including the short essay, will be read by trained readers who will make a placement determination. The assessment does not generate additional fees by third party proctors and is designed for student engagement in the placement process.

Placement Categories

Based on their written exams, students will be placed into one of the following:

English 101: College Composition is the first-year writing course that satisfies the WSU graduation requirement. 3-credits.

English 101 + ENG 102: College Composition is the first-year writing class that satisfies the WSU graduation requirement. English 102 is an additional one-credit class of 5-10 students who meet once a week for an hour with a trained instructor or tutor. 4 credits.

Exempt: This placement means that students demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge of the conventions of academic writing. Students who are exempted receive credit for taking English 101.

Appeal Process

If you feel an error was made in the evaluation of your essays, you are welcome to contact the Writing Assessment Office to schedule an appointment to talk.

Get started on your academic path…