<p>How important is this in admissions? My English teacher has yet to assign a formal essay. We do weekly essays but my teacher takes an obscenely long time to grade things. We haven't gotten ANY of these essays back since the beginning of the year. I've asked him multiple times if I could have just ONE back. I also tried to get him to grade an extra essay I wrote for the express purpose of sending to Reed but he keeps telling me to 'be patient'.</p>
<p>Well, the deadline is coming soon and I'm worried I'm going to have a) to turn in a piece of crap from last year b) Fake it and have someone else write comments on my essay. My other two essays are good and I don't want this one to pale in comparison. Am I screwed?</p>
<p>It doesn't have to be an english essay. I would advise talking to your college counselor about this, maybe he/she can kick your teacher's ass a bit, so he can realize how much he's screwing you over (I had this exact problem last year)</p>
<p>Here here Bluegrass. And yeah, it doesn't need to be an English essay at all. But I definitely agree with talking to your school's counselor about the issue. His laziness shouldn't have any effect on your application.</p>
<p>My son turned his in after the rest of his application, because he was waiting for his English teacher to grade the essay that he really wanted to submit for it. I would agree that you make clear that this is a required component of your application, and that you need it to complete the app. Also, let Reed know that it may take a while get it to them. I think my son's didn't arrive until after the app deadline, and was faxed, or something complicated like that.</p>
<p>Like you, my son's senior English teacher hadn't assigned any essays by the time he applied ED 1 last year. Instead, he used a short paper he'd written for AP Enviro. Science in his junior year. It reflected his thinking process better than anything he'd written in his junior year AP English class, and it worked out OK for him admissions-wise.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. Well I managed to coerce my teacher into grading a paper. =/ The comments are sparse though. I just have another quick question. I'm sending the sample in via snail mail but when I try to submit the supplement online it keeps telling me I need to enter something in for the second essay. How do I submit it without uploading anything?</p>
<p>You can't as far as I know. If you read the instructions, it says to upload either the original electronic document of the paper you wrote w/o grades, or to scan your graded paper and upload it that way. </p>
<p>I simply attached my research paper as a .pdf (or Rich Text Format, either works) and sent it off, and I sent the graded copy via snail mail like you.</p>
<p>Oh okay! I just saw the part where it was like 'Either upload a scanned copy of your graded paper in PDF format or mail a graded copy separately.' and thought that I could only upload a PDF of the graded sample. =] Thanks!</p>
<p>Im getting kinda screwed over on the graded sample too. Most of my writing from last year is either thrown away or has little to no comments on it. This year, my teacher doesn't believe in assigning essays outside of class. I can send in one of my labs for science class but those are pretty mechanical, and don't do justice to my thinking.</p>