If none of the colleges I’ll apply to through common app require me to send ALL scores, can I omit answering yes on the SAT essay question? I’d use Coalition for the ones who do require me to send all scores, because if I put no and then they see the score I’d be scared to be disqualified for lying or something. My score was truly awful (10/24, I did well on most of the test but I’m a terribly slow writer so I managed to write 2 paragraphs and a half, the intro, conclussion and the start of a body paragraph) and I really don’t want to ruin my chances as a non native english speaker.
Can you? Yes; you have free will
Would you be lying by saying “No”? Yes
Would you be violating the Common App, where you certify that the information is your own work, factually true and honestly presented.? Yes.
Do colleges that don’t require the essay care what your essay score is? No.
Suck it up and do the right thing.
I mean,because I can send the SAT from the date I didn’t took the essay they’d never know right? I’m honestly just too scared of not getting in anywhere. I’ll do the right thing tho… 
If the college does not require all scores, then you can certainly not send the scores from a particular date. But for the application itself, your options are to answer the questions honestly, or omit answering, where allowed.
I will say that our son sent one score on all of his apps. It was the test he took in Aug before his junior year. After he received this score, he had to still take the SAT in April of junior year for the state we live in. It’s mandaory for graduation and students cannot use a different test date (so dumb). Anyway, he did fine on April test but was 30 points lower than the Aug test and didn’t need to use that April score. That test did include the essay where his Aug test did not. None of his schools needed the essay. He didn’t think about it so much I guess when he checked no on the question about “did he take the essay section”. He’s not using that test. Didn’t want to take that test and didn’t need the score. He already got his high score months before. I saw that he checked no and didn’t think it was an issue either. To him it just meant that he didn’t take the essay on the one and only test he planned to send. He got a 20 on the essay so he want trying to hide anything. It was an honest oversight since his schools don’t want it and we didn’t even send any part of that test where he wrote the essay.
I’m not really worried about it. He wasn’t trying to hide anything. He just sort of read the question wrong. He didn’t take the essay on the one and only test he sent.
If the question is “have you taken the SAT essay” it seems like the answer would be yes. If they were interested in only the test you were sending they could easily look up the scores to see if an essay’s attached.
honesty is the best policy
“honesty is the best policy”
Exactly. NEVER lie on a university application.
If they catch you, then your application will be rejected even if you were otherwise going to be an easy admit. US universities and the college board are well connected to each other. You should assume that they will catch you if you lie.
However, I think that schools will understand poor scores on the SAT essay for students who are not native English speakers.
The problem is that the question is poorly-worded by the Common App. The question immediately preceding “Have you taken the SAT essay?” is “Number of past SAT scores you wish to report,” an optional exercise. If you answer yes to having taken the SAT essay, you are then required to report the “highest combined essay score.” It wouldn’t make sense to require reporting of the essay score even if it is not among the test sittings for the “past SAT scores you wish to report.” My guess is that the question should have been worded something along the lines of, “Did your past SAT sittings that you wish to report include the SAT essay.”
Weirdly, even if you put that you wish to report a large number of past SAT scores, Common App still only provides boxes for the highest of each section score.
They sound like different questions with different intents. How many tests do you want to report could be one. But if you took one with an essay score they want to know what that was.
For most colleges out there, the essay score is barely considered, if at all. For a few majors, they can glance over and see a terribly low essay score, but this is so outweighed by the other scores.
The bigger issue is, are you truly qualified for these colleges, you have the grades, whatever level of rigor and ECs they expect? You wrote a good app and supps?
So, the first question is what colleges- or what tier? And how qualified.
Are you seriously asking whether you can lie? Do you expect any of the adults on this site to give you our blessing?
Is “They’ll never know” the guiding principle of your life?
And, in this computer age, why on earth would you assume that “they’ll never know”?? You’ve got to realize that you’re not the first teenager they’ve ever dealt with before.
Could be. But if a person responds that they wish to report 0 past SAT scores (or doesn’t select SAT as a category of scores to report), then Common App does not ask whether the person took the SAT with essay - there is no pop-up, basically.
In my opinion, the Common App requirement to report an essay score from a sitting you didn’t wish to report at all is nonsensical given the optional nature of the essay section, not to mention the optional nature of score reporting in the Common App in general (i.e. choice in score reporting within the app).
@Bella31 You can also not report any SAT scores at all in the Common App - you’d never see the pop-up question about whether you’ve taken SAT with essay - and then simply use College Board’s Score Choice to only send an official score report from College Board for the sitting you took without essay. There is nothing unethical about that approach.
That’s dishonest, whether or not he feels like it is, and how someone could misread the question “did you take the essay section” is beyond me. In fact, honestly misunderstanding that question would be a sign of a profound weakness in reading or perhaps even an intellectual disability, but I’m sure he didn’t misunderstand and instead just decided to answer it untruthfully. I’m disappointed to hear from a parent who condones such lying.