Placement of multilingual writers: Is there a role for student voices?

In this study, 1067 university L2 students completed both a voluntary self-assessment survey and the locally administered placement examination. We statistically compared the students' placement exam scores and their responses to the final question as to which level of a four-course writing program they thought would best meet their needs. We also examined a stratified random sample of 100 students' standardized test scores to see if there was a statistical relationship between those tests, our locally designed and administered placement test, and students' own self-placement scores. We conclude that student self-assessment might have a legitimate role in our placement process, but it probably cannot be used by itself to accurately place large numbers of multilingual students into a four-level sequence.