<p>As I was looking at the essay I wrote in Dec, I couldn't even read the first paragraph because the copying was so bad, so I was just wondering is the essay you see on your collegeboard account the one graders read and if so do they take off for not being able to read it?</p>
<p>If its illegible its a problem. If its hard to read or takes a bit to figure out its fine. I have the worst handwriting out of anyone I know; I've gotten 12s multiple times.</p>
<p>while graders are technically not supposed to grade down for bad handwriting, it definitely does not help your cause. Think about it: If you were a grader, who has to read 200 essays everyday, and you're grumpy and crabby because you hate reading SAT essays, and you get an essay with illegible handwriting. That will probably unconsciously factor into the grader's impression of your essay. Now imagine that same grader, but with an essay that has beautiful handwriting. Now they can waste less time deciphering and more time getting to understand your writing style.</p>
<p>I have horrid handwriting and I got a 12.</p>
<p>i don't think they are suppose to take away points for it, but it probably help if you have super neat handwriting. but looking at my essay from dec. i basically couldn't make out what i wrote, and i always thought i'm bad at essays, and yet i got a 11. so who knows</p>
<p>I got an 11. But somehow I kept thinking that I could've got a 12 if my handwriting were not that hideous.</p>
<p>hmmm...this is interesting because some of the words on my essay seemed unreadable. Maybe the graders get a higher quality version?</p>
<p>Also, see my thread to prove that 12s are possible with terrible handwriting:</p>
<p>I've heard that SAT essay graders, annoyed in their excessive essay reading load, sometimes favor the easy to read essays with nice handwriting and huge paragraph indentations, but it could be a myth.</p>
<p>Don't stress about it.</p>
<p>Big handwriting is better than little handwriting. It's easier to read, and most importantly takes up more space.</p>
<p>^An example of this:</p>
<p>chronicfuture12 got a 12. His first two lines read:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Success can be defined as achieving a previously established goal. Although
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I got an 8. My first two lines read:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Decisions made quickly are just as good as decisions made over time. Often, long drawn out decisions result in horrible mistakes. Just as
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Obviously the size of writing wasn't the only difference between our essays, but it's been shown many times that the biggest factor in your score is probably the amount of space it takes up.</p>
<p>The scorers do see a better image. The College Board site says (at [Page</a> Not Found](<a href=“Understanding SAT Scores – SAT Suite | College Board):%5DPage”>Understanding SAT Scores – SAT Suite | College Board)
“Please note that the essay images seen by readers for scoring purposes are clearer than the images we can display for students and institutions on our website.”
I am not quite sure why they can’t display the real image, but I’m hoping the version scorers get is better than the one I can see. It looks like a binary image (only black or white, no shades of gray), so many marks that I erased are just as dark as the actual words are, and much of the essay is very hard to read.</p>