I took the SAT for the first time after a lot of preparation and hit my target score, but I got a 6/4/6 on the essay section. Should I retake it if I know I am a more capable writer than that?
Thank you
No
Then show it through your application essays, which are more critical than your essay score.
@skieurope Even if it won’t be too much hassle?
The number of colleges that require/recommend to essay portion is fast dwindling. Taking again may improve your essay score, but it is equally likely that it won’t.Plus the 1550 could decrease.Your time would be more productive elsewhere…
@skieurope Sorry just one more question
If a school no longer requires it, will my score on the SAT essay negatively impact my chances at all, or do they just not look at it?
Totally agree with @skieurope Your SAT score is KILLER. The essay really isn’t as important and if you show strong writing in your app, the AO will see that. If if makes you feel any better, my D18 got a 1520 on her SAT and 6/6/6 on the essay portion and she’s not retaking. She recently read her essay and supplemental writing portions to me and they shine. Spend the time you’d take prepping for the test again (even if you say it’s not a hassle, it’s still time) to really make the writing in your apps shine, and you’ll be fine : )
Well, they can’t unsee what’s there, but I’m of the belief that it will not hurt you if you have well-written essays. On the flip side, an essay score of 8/8/8 will not compensate for crappy application essays.
The essay score is inconsequential. Even a top score and a senseless rest won’t help.
Understand that the CA essay is less about your writing being superior and more about what you choose to write about and how you then deliver. It’s about making sense to adcoms reviewing you for their class.
Don’t worry. 1550 is an amazing score in its own regard and a low essay score won’t break your application
Colleges don’t care about the essay score. Your college application essays matter much more.
Not sure how helpful this will be to the OP at this point, but hopefully others will find this useful.
I am going to have to disagree with what some other people have said. While many colleges claim that they do not consider the essay portion of the SAT, if admissions officers see your essay scores, there is no reason to believe that it will not bias (perhaps subconsciously) how they view the rest of your application, regardless of whether or not it is explicitly a factor in their deliberations. If they see your essay score, they cannot then unsee it. It will affect how they view you as an applicant. The only way you can be sure that it does not matter is if you know that the admissions officers do not even see your essay scores.
I would especially recommend taking it again because I assume based on your scores that you are applying to very selective schools where the margins in the admissions process are already very slim. It is not worth taking the risk. And besides, you may do better on the other sections as well (you did say this was your first time taking the SAT).
Also, regarding the idea that admissions officers will be able to better discern your writing ability from your essay, I should mention that the admissions essay is a completely different style of writing than an analytic essay. I am not sure how much admissions officers judge your analytic writing ability from your essay (I am also not sure how wise of them it would be to do so). Additionally, if your essay score does not closely align with the quality of your essay, that can be cause for skepticism (e.g. that you had a lot of outside help).
(As an aside, college admissions essays–and this is an important reminder for everyone–are not meant to be a showcase of your writing ability: they are meant to be a showcase of you and your personality. Many students write bad college admissions essays because they focus too much on showing off their writing abilities and too little on showing off themselves.)
None of this is to say you have to do perfectly on the essay, but I think you should aim to get at least a 6 on your reading, analysis, and writing scores and at least a 20 overall.
If you do take it again, I would make sure to practice plenty so that you can raise your analysis score. Make sure that you clearly and thoroughly explain how specific details in the author’s argument contribute to her argument on the whole. Don’t be afraid to be explicit or hit the reader over the head with your point–the reader will be reading your essay very quickly. You should write several sentences explaining the significance of each detail you choose to write about. I think the following analogy is helpful. The given passage is a complex machine. Your job is to explain how a few cogs in that machine function with respect to the machine as a whole. Your job is to explain why those cogs are so important. Convince the readers that you understand why those cogs are so crucial.
As a bonus, practicing for the SAT essay will also help improve your writing on other timed essays such as AP essays or the occasional timed essay in college.
Good luck and don’t stress to much! You are already in the enviable position of owning a 1550.
“If they see your essay score, they cannot then unsee it.” But adcoms are smart enough to disregard it. It’s still widely considered a flawed measure. Yes, if you’re aiming for a writing intensive major, but they’ll move to the more trusted aspects of the app.
Several Things:
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Many top colleges still require the SAT essay. If they require it, we should assume that they care about it.
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Even among the colleges that don’t require the essay, we can assume that they still consider the SAT essay unless they say that they don’t factor it into their decision making (other standardized tests that aren’t required, e.g. APs, are also considered even if they are not required).
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Among colleges that don’t require the SAT essay and that say they don’t factor it into their decision making, if they see the essay score, it will very likely bias their deliberations. The idea that someone, regardless how smart, can neatly excise their biases from their decision making seems fantastical. Much research in psychology and economics has shown as much. Even ignoring the research, the principle here is sufficiently intuitive. Consider the following case: it has been shown (if I recall correctly) that many doctors prescribe half as many painkillers to Hispanic patients as they do to non-Hispanic patients. Doctors who do this, however, are almost always unaware that they have this bias (such biases are often called implicit biases precisely because they are unconscious). Furthermore, upon being informed of their implicit biases, most doctors want to correct their behavior–someone can have an implicit bias and not endorse that bias. However, a doctor cannot then just remove the implicit bias and treat their Hispanic patients like their other patients–try as they might. A doctor can try and a doctor can improve and perhaps even overcompensate and start to over-prescribe painkillers to Hispanic patients. But the doctor still has the implicit bias and still sees the patient as Hispanic. A doctor who doesn’t endorse her implicit bias may think to herself “I know the patient is Hispanic and I know I under-prescribe painkillers to Hispanic patients, thus I should prescribe more painkillers to this patient than I think I should”. Notice in this train of thought that the patient’s being Hispanic enters into the doctor’s deliberations. If someone consciously makes an effort to not fall into the traps of their implicit biases, they have to think about the bias. In other words, the bias must enter into the agent’s deliberations, e.g. the doctor must recognize that a patient is Hispanic before she can try to treat that patient like her other patients.
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Although the SAT essay is not as fine-grained or reliable as some other factors in an application, it still is (at least in my experience) a somewhat good indicator of someone’s writing abilities (the new SAT essay is a marked improvement over the old one in this regard). I don’t think 1-point differences on subsections, e.g. the difference between a 7 and an 8 on reading, are very meaningful but I do think bigger differences can be meaningful. A score as low as a 4 might be cause for concern. In general, though, if students are applying to very selective schools, anything above or including a 20 overall should not harm their applications.
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Several other problematic assumptions. Admissions officers vary. They will weigh different parts of the application in idiosyncratic ways. Admissions officers are not infallible–they have to read a bunch of essays really quickly. Admissions officers are not hyper-rational beings. They are prone to errors in decision making just like the rest of us.
This may all seem like a bit much, but I think it is important to dissuade people from the all to popular misconception that the SAT essay does not matter. This myth has undoubtedly harmed a good number of students’ applications.
@TheSATTeacher At the moment, your point #1 is false. No school in the top-20 - no, let’s make that top-30 - still requires the essay except the UCs. They dropped like flies. It’s amazing, really, how quickly that changed over the past year or so.
Harvard, Yale, Brown, JHU, Rice: “optional,” so no, not required. (Notice that they don’t even say “recommended.”) Princeton, Stanford, Cornell, Dartmouth, UPenn, UChicago, Northwestern, Columbia, MIT, Duke, Caltech, Vandy, WashU, ND, Emory, USC, CMU, UVA, Michigan, NYU, Wake, Tufts, UNC: nope. Not even Georgetown, which has the most extensive standardized testing requirements.
^^Exactly, and with an ever increasing number of schools allowing self-reporting of test scores, one need not even report the essay score (for those that don’t require it) along with section scores. Not to mention the ever increasing number of test optional schools, which is creeping up the college selectivity scale as well
I would not retake with that excellent score. You could do worse - which would be worse for you than mediocre essays. Most schools don’t care about the essays and many kids get mediocre scores on them.
U Roch, Brandeis, Georgia Tech, UF, BC, W&M, BC, Case, Northeastern, Tulane, Pepperdine: no.
Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley: no.
Here we go, I found one! Amherst: recommended.
It’s likely moot at this point but I’d retake if it’s not a big deal. There is no downside. Assuming the rest of the application is strong, it probably won’t make a bid difference though…
I remember a few schools dropping it, but I didn’t realize it was this many. Guess I was living under a rock for a bit-oh well.
Still, the principle stands. If they see it, it very well might affect their decision making. Furthermore, optional does not mean the same thing as not considered. If something is optional and you submit it, expect that it will be considered.
Our son took the SAT in Aug of junior year and got a 1540 without essay. He was done. In March, though, his school requires all juniors to take the test (bc the state of IL requires it for graduation and it has to be the test administered by the high school in March). That test had the essay. Most schools will superscore the SAT. He got a 1530 on the second test and a 7/8/6 so reported both scores on the CA. Only Amherst on his list “recommended” the essay but we thought that score was worth reporting even though his section score in reading was lower. I assume the schools will see his first section scores (740EW 800M) and then the essay score.
So…if you think you might apply to schools that want the essay don’t worry about a lower score on a second test. Most schools will just take the highest score of each section (EW, Math, Essay). I do feel like one does has to prep for the essay. S19 did not BUT he was taking AP Lang at the time and his teacher was really prepping them for the AP. The essay prompts are pretty much the same as the SAT.
Lastly, I read that any score over a 6/6/6 is fine for reporting to the most elite schools.