<p>So, I just recently received my SAT score-- I got a 750 on math, 650 on CR, but a 12 on the essay and a 730 on the writing! I was pretty shocked with the 12 essay, so I have this question for you all-- Should I send this score in along with another test in which I received a 790 on math and a 670 in CR (1460), or will it do more harm than good? In other words, how much of a boost will a 12 give me even though 1400<1460.?</p>
<p>the essay score doesn’t matter at all, if that’s what you’re asking.</p>
<p>^ Actually, that depends on the college. Some colleges completely disregard the entire writing section while others will take it into consideration. Refer to each college’s CDS, SAT section for confirmation. If you scored 1400 and 1460, those scores are fairly similar. It wouldn’t hurt to send in both scores. A 12 essay is impressive. BUT, if you are only applying to schools that don’t use the writing section, then it’s not worth it IMO.</p>
<p>my top choice, for example, is NU, and I like schools like emory washu and umich. Even if they don’t use writing, doesn’t the essay matter, just like it does on the ACT?</p>
<p>Reedite, sometimes writing score matters. But the essay score does not, because a 750 is a 750 and an 800 is an 800, no matter how you got it. A 12 on the essay for an 800 isn’t any more impressive than a 9 on the essay with an 800. If they actually wanted to examine your writing skills, your personal statement should speak for itself.</p>
<p>I see, so a 12 is essentially useless?</p>
<p>There are definitely schools that actually have a copy of your SAT essay that they use as “verification with the personal statement/CommonApp essay.”
Maybe in that case the actual score doesn’t matter, but the quality of the writing sure does. And better quality writing normally = better essay score on SAT. </p>
<p>Regardless, a 12 is something to be proud of and should be shown to those colleges that take it into consideration.</p>
<p>Ugotserved: you should do you own research. Look at the common data set of all of the colleges you are interested in to see how they use the SAT essay in admissions. It’s part C and you should be able to find it by searching for it using the website’s own search function.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/cds/cds1011/cdssecc201011.html[/URL]”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/cds/cds1011/cdssecc201011.html</a> </p>
<p>Look at part c: first time freshmen admission. Scroll down to C8, section C. You will see what I am talking about.</p>
<p>thank you all!</p>
<p>SAT/ACT writing is graded on strucutre alone. Graders are not allowed to mark off for style or content. </p>
<p>Good for determining if a community college applicant can write in complete sentences, but completely useless in judging an accomplished student’s writing ability, espicially in a time constrained setting.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if it is a GOOD judge of writing ability. The fact is, it IS used as a judge of writing ability (at some schools. Refer to previous posts).</p>
<p>So…send it because 1400 is similar enough to 1460? I feel like in a conversion, although 1400 is a 32 and a 1460 is a 33 in terms of ACT, the 1400 is a low 32, while the 1460 is a safe 33.</p>
<p>What was your writing score for the 1400 test? Higher or lower than your 730? Do the schools you are looking at superscore?</p>
<p>*SAT/ACT writing is graded on strucutre alone. Graders are not allowed to mark off for style or content. *</p>
<p>They’re not allowed to, but that doesn’t mean they don’t. They’re also not supposed to grade based on length, but a professor recently found that length of the essays is very strongly correlated with the score - so much so that if a particular essay is held too far away for him to read, he can still correctly guess the score it got most of the time.</p>
<p>That’s why so many schools are wary of the SAT writing section and particularly the essay - it’s very basic high school level stuff, not college-level writing. I’ve known a few students I tutored who were very good writers normally but struggled with the SAT (and with the GRE).</p>
<p>The 1400 was the one with the 12, and I got a 730 on writing. For the 1460, I got a 9, and a 720 on the writing. I understand that the actual writing scores are not very far apart, but I just want to submit the 1400 because maybe a 12 is truly special. If the 12 is not special, then I don’t see why I should submit the 1400.</p>
<p>Right. I see where you’re coming from. Yeah, my only advice is look into all of your prospective schools to see how they use it. In my observations, I’ve noticed that large universities care less about it, but small LACs care more (as shown with the link above). Obviously this isn’t always the case but it’s just what I have noticed. I don’t know a lot about any of the schools you mentioned (practically nothing, actually), so I think it is best you do you own research.</p>
<p>Very simple, unless your school requires all SAT scores, don’t send it. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s an admissions officer in any one of the schools you’re going to apply to that would suddenly accept you because you had a 12 essay.</p>