<p>The college app requires hand-written essays, which is very very bad for us. My son's public school taught cursive in 2nd grade, then never required it after that. His middle school requires that all writing assignments be typed, and his elementary school had computers in the classroom so that the students could type their essays. Needless to say, his penmanship is an embarrassment. He prints, and it looks like he's on drugs or psychotic.
I don't know what to do. I don't want him not to follow the directions, but that might not be as bad as letting the schools think he's disturbed. My husband thinks that there's something disrespectful in submitting an essay that the reader has to work so hard to understand.<br>
Anyone have a sense of just how important the hand-written essay requirement is? I looked at the earlier threads on it, but no sure answer. I'm considering contacting the schools, but what do I say, "You'd never admit him if you saw his penmanship?" Ugh!</p>
<p>I think the point of the hand written part of the essay is so that they can compare it to the essay that you write on the SSAT, to make sure that they are in the same handwriting.</p>
<p>Interesting. That never occurred to me.
What would it tell them, that the same person wrote both?
As an aside, when he took the ssat, we were surprised that no one checked his ID to make sure that he was who he said he was. When he came out, we joked that we should have sent in his older sister, who never has gotten less than a perfect score on any standardized test. She could have written these essays as well, legibly.
I actually was surprised that he did as well as he did on the ssat, given his handwriting.
thanks</p>
<p>I encourage you to also submit a typed transcript of the handwritten essay.</p>
<p>My son's handwriting is so bad, everything he writes looks like a suicide note.</p>
<p>Bless you for saying that!
I'm laughing out loud here.</p>
<p>Just as an FYI - I spoke to St. Andrews, which is the one school to which he has already submitted a typed application. They said that so long as he signed it, they were fine with his typed essay. I have to say that every time I've called St. Andrews with a question, I come away impressed with how willing they are to accommodate.</p>
<p>neatoburrito--- that cracked me up, too. Thank you.
I had my son do all his apps in pencil. He is what he is. My son has typed everything for school since the 5th grade.I'm
hoping the schools recognize that his work is authentically his own.</p>
<p>My friend urged her child to include a typed copy, because she knew her kid had bad writing. The kid didn't listen to mom. Later my friend came across the child's Xerox of the application, she---the MOM---couldn't read a word of it. So that school had NO IDEA of what she was trying to say, which her mother is convinced gave them reason enough to reject her quickly. She was accepted at another HADES school without the handwriting requirement and is thriving, so this cautionary tale has a happy ending. But please include a typed transcript if the writing is really hard to read, then I think unibomber handwriting will be easily forgiven!</p>
<p>My S had to stop many times because he said his hand hurt a lot. :-)</p>
<p>His hand writing was so messy I doubt anyone other than his younger sister can read it.</p>
<p>going to print from cursive neatly isn't easy</p>
<p>that's a euphamism for 2 hellish miserable years transitioning into straight, sticklike, noncurvy, and thus extremely dull-looking script.</p>
<p>and they're hellish. I used to write in cursive since the 1st or 2nd grade until 7th, at which point my teacher told me my writing was too messy (cursive is fast writing after all...) and I was forced to do print. it was embarassing.</p>
<p>It is interesting how hard handwriting is for a lot of kids now. We had penmanship as a full class all the way through fifth grade and even after that we would always get a penmanship grade on a test/paper in addition to the grade for content. (I was in grade school in the seventies.) Of course my mother's schools had even more emphasis on handwriting and how it demonstrated character.</p>
<p>Well, I spoke to every school we're applying to and without exception, they got a good laugh. One person pointed out that since PC's came into classrooms and most homes, teachers were quick to require that all written assignments be typed, so these students just don't get as much practice as before. They're very used to the problem. One school asked that I shoot them an email reminder of our conversation so that someone else looking at the file won't draw a negative conclusion about his following directions, but she said they're very used to this issue. Another person said that she wished people would send a typed transcription sometimes because the penmanship is so difficult to read.</p>