If I want to apply to a selective college like Columbia or Georgetown, do they care about the ACT essay, and if so how much? I’m wondering about this because college admissions have always seemed to place a lower priority on writing and with the new essay changes, will they almost ignore it?
Largely no. I would conserve your energy on the essay, as a super low score might look questionable, but generally colleges don’t care.
@PassEdge thanks that was the plan for me
@PassEdge Colleges know that the ACT essay is a poor indicator of a person’s true writing skills and can be biased, so they give little to no weight to the ACT essay score. They already know about your writing skills — they can see it in your essays. I wouldn’t worry about it unless the score is so low that it has the potential to raise some eyebrows in the admissions offices (and by low, I mean really really low).