<p>Actually the writing portion is easily prepared.. i jus feel that they give too much weight to the essay..</p>
<p>Chevda - I hope that's the case but so many of the admissions officers I have met are recent graduates of the college or 2 to 3 years out of some college, perhaps not even that college. I work in peds and often train new grads who are about 25 to 26 years old, typically with no children, and find most have little perspective or experience to draw on when thinking about children, teens, families. They crave a protocol, like to have a black and white assessment - they simply haven't seen enough to recognize that things aren't always what they seem or even know when to ask more questions. I suspect these young adm officers are more cookbook oriented than able to read between the lines. They do keep asking us to trust their experience yet most of them have vey little experience.</p>
<p>I understand and to some degree agree with your fear, Rileydog. But I think that these young admissions reps who are more "cookbook oriented" are even less likely to read the essay at all, and just to look at overall scores - "This kid only got 1850. Reject." or "CR & M are 1450. Accept." </p>
<p>I guess I see it this way: If they're cookie cutter, they'll just look at overall scores, with or without writing - whatever the school's protocol says, compare it to GPA, and be done. If they're not cookie cutter, they might read the essay, but be more analytical and "holistic" about it, rather than using the essay as the "be all and end all."</p>
<p>Does that make sense?</p>
<p>The score for the writing section SAT I is weighted at least as a score of Sat subject test in the ivies. Starting this year Yale will no longer accept old SAT I scores. </p>
<p>my 2cent</p>
<p>And he got a 6! (And I am an AP English teacher, so I know effective or ineffective writing.) It was the materialism essay, and he wrote about the robber barons, the Hilton sisters, how everyone denied the harm from cigarettes for many years as is happening with global warming, and how materialism has the potential to destroy the world. He knows history, and he had a number of historical references, used correctly, in the essay.</p>
<p>I am thinking he had two very conservative essay readers, which is a risk a kid takes having a personal voice, as most effective writers do.</p>
<p>This year, researchers at the University of California found that high school grade point average was the single best predictor of the longer-term success of their students. After high school GPA, the next best predictor was what is now the SAT writing test.</p>
<p>How can studies show that the longer-term success of college students correlates with the SAT Writing Test when the test is just a couple of years old??</p>
<p>Adigal,
I'm guessing they're talking about the SAT II Writing (which is the new SAT Writing). Although that's not good data either, because the pool of applicants that took the old SAT II Writing were different than the overall pool. The SAT II Writing was only required for elite universities. Therefore that pool was composed of relatively higher motivated students who were trying for the most selective colleges- it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that they would tend to be more successful in the long run.</p>
<p>adigal - a total of 6 or 6 per reader?</p>
<p>This from a kid who got a 98 on his English Regents exam, which is 4 essays, and a 5 on his AP US History test. It's crazy!!</p>
<p>That's crazy. Are you saying he got two "3"s? If you've read the essay, and it's pretty good, then there's something wrong with that.</p>
<p>doubleplay - I agree with you - I mentioned that in another thread - can't possibly use that data to say it is predictive as it is based on the highly selective set of students taking the SAT II Writing before the change.</p>
<p>adigal - that seems crazy - you can have it rescored, can't you? What was the handwriting like? I read my son's online and nearly died. He told me he sat there thinking about the prompt and didn't write until the final five minutes. His punctuation and spelling were not reviewed - ugh. But, he still managed an 8. Not great, but I would have thought almost anything would be higher given his awful handwriting, awkward flow, misplaced apostrophes, mispelled words and made up references, which were.....just....plain....desperate. I wonder if one of the readers gave a 4 and the other a 2 for your son's- maybe one just didn't get his free spirit! Is there anything recourse for those who feel they've been miscored?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the SAT was sent to his top choice schools, as we couldn't imagine he would do that badly on it. His writing was scored much higher on the ACT. His whole test was higher. I teach a lot of seniors who do much better on the ACT in general.</p>
<p>what I don't understand is why the UC schools didn't just make the SAT II writing test required! The old SAT II writing is exactly the same as the writing one, only now it's part of the main SAT. The problem could have been solved by the California schools to just require that SAT II. Personally, I feel like a 25 minute essay is a ridiculous measure. In practice, I would get an 11 or 12 every time. On the day of the exam, i got a question on a random subject (about the role of gov. in society) which I had never read any books about. So, I got screwed with an 8. While I could come up with one solid example, i still needed more. If this were a college essay, I could have time to read a book about it. Or, if this were a timed exam, I'd hope that I would only be asked this question in a government class or something.</p>