<p>I heard colleges wanted to put it in because too many students were going to college without knowing how to write well. However, don't the essays students write for their college apps show whether or not they write well? </p>
<p>Besides, how good of an essay can someone really write in 25 minutes? I know people who consistently score 8's out of 9 on essays in my AP Language class (trust me, it's hard to earn such a score with my teacher) and yet earned only an 8 out of 12 on the SAT essay. </p>
<p>The people who earn 11's and 12's do three things:
1) write as much as possible
2) use a very formulaic approach towards the essay (5 paragraphs and a generic thesis)
3) add 1-2 nice SAT words in there</p>
<p>Like you, I am not a fan of the essay section. It is, however, the only piece of writing that is involved in the admissions process about which admissions officers can be sure of the authorship.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m not a big fan of essays on tests, not on the SAT or on AP examinations, especially not AP Literature. It does encourage formulaic writing, as well as length over being concise (to a certain degree). But still, it seems silly to measure writing skills solely by error correction, so I guess it’s somewhat necessary. Personally, I think interviews should play a much larger part in the whole college applications process. Test scores and college essays can be improved if you have the money to spend, and essays can give a really false picture of a person. But it’s darn hard to try and fool someone, face-to-face, about your interests, personality, etc.</p>
<p>You’re pretty much spot on. The only thing that the SAT Essay tests is your ability to fill two pages with, in my opinion, at least 10th grade level writing.</p>
<p>As long as you write some English that makes sense without consistent glaring grammar errors (ex. something like “they is…”) and have some vague structure of an organization of ideas, then colleges won’t put much thought to your SAT essay. </p>
<p>I never prepped for the essay part the 3 times I took it, wrote some nonsensical reasonings and examples of whatever occurred to my head at the time, and got an 8, 10 and 8 on the three sittings respectively. I never bother to use fancy words in my SAT essays either.</p>
<p>The essential reason for this part is probably just to prove you can speak and write English. People in some foreign countries have SAT classes for the writing section where it’s taught like a math class. They teach the proper sentence structures like a formula; memorizing that certain types of words can only come after other certain types of words and such. My friend went to a sleepover SAT camp one summer in China, and that was how they taught the writing section. She lent me some of her notes for the writing section, and it actually boosted my score lol. Pretty effective, but it doesn’t exactly teach you how to write an essay, it only teaches you how to excel in correcting grammar.</p>
<p>Silverturtle, that’s a great point. However, how often do colleges really see the students’ essays? For some students, after editing their college app essays several times it’s almost impossible to see the resemblance between the SAT essay and app essays.</p>
<p>Yeoman, I agree. I know quite of few people who had a personalized essay corrector. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. However, some people take it a step further and the corrector does more than correct, if you catch my drift.</p>
<p>Haha, write likea 5th grader! Spot on. </p>
<p>Well, cuteaccountant, don’t international students have to take additional tests? If the essay section is there only for international students it’s kind of crazy that everyone has to take it. Haha, sometimes memorization is very helpful, I agree.</p>
<p>Haha yeah they do have to take the TOEFL thing but I’m just saying it makes sure people are competent at English and writing. You’ll be surprised at the way some students (in the USA) write.</p>
<p>The point of the SAT Essay sections is to A) see how well the applicant can BS an essay, B) torture those “non-morning people”, and C) cause widespread panic, fear, and outrage in SAT takers.</p>
<p>xD</p>
<p>In all seriousness though, the reason that the SAT has an essay section is because the University of California system started saying to CollegeBoard that if they didn’t change the SAT by adding a writing section including an essay, UCs would stop using the SAT and go to a different test. So, SAT changed to the current 2400 three section test with the essay. Now, UC is saying the essay is stupid and doesn’t measure writing ability. Go figure.</p>
<p>Haha yeah, many Americans write much worse than international students. I couldn’t agree more. But hey, 1/3 drop out of HS so there you go. </p>
<p>Raelah, what you say is too true. I’m seriously chuckling to myself right now.
But why did UCs want an essay section in the first place? Did they really think a 25 minute essay would be an accurate representation of students’ writing abilities?</p>
<p>The essay topics are often ridiculously vague and pointless. “Is it ever ok to be impolite?” How am I supposed to answer that?
You can’t say no. That’s bad character.
You can’t say yes. Absolutes are almost always wrong.</p>
<p>Expands the student’s borders by requiring you to memorize history lessons and book plots to fill your essay with. Also an excuse to lower people’s scores who don’t memorize the above. Not as bad as the vocab. memorization needed for the CR part though.</p>
<p>The essay section is pretty important actually, not for admissions purpose, but to show that you are a competent writer in English. You have EASILY have a professional writer write your college essay, but actually being forced to write something decent in 25 minutes shows another side of you. I have taken the SAT (10,12) and ACT (10,11) -Scores- and I felt that the ACT challenges you to write some decent essay, as opposed to current events and books with the SAT. I honestly enjoyed writing the ACT, rather than some b/s for the SAT essay and still maintaining an easy 12.</p>
<p>Except, as any English teacher will tell you, good writing cannot be done in 25 minutes. The standardized test essays don’t test if you can write an essay WELL, only if you can write a mediocre essay very quickly.</p>
<p>A low income student is much less likely to be able to travel and visit their dream school for an interview than a well off student is. </p>
<p>If you live in the midwest, unless you’re in a major city, chances are a representitive from your big name college from either coast isnt going to be stopping by anywhere near your house… (Just as an example of why this type of interview doesn’t make up for the income issue)</p>
<p>Not to mention…some people just aren’t good at articulating themselves, especially when nervous…which doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t as deserving of acceptance as someone who can.</p>
<p>Yeah, the SAT essay blows. But its easy to just bs and get a good score…whats the point of complaining about it.</p>
<p>1) In a lot of cases, not having an interview may be a good thing. There’s some egotistical nuts at my school who don’t do interviews (unless they are assigned them) because they know it will hurt them in admissions.</p>
<p>2) The thing that’s really amusing about the writing section is that it doesn’t matter what you write about. They couldn’t care less whether or not you persuaded them one way or another. As long as you have an argument and back it up, you’re ok. </p>
<p>I know someone that MADE UP an entire essay on a novel and a TV show that didn’t exist. She got a 12. All that matters is that she could write coherent sentences, write a decently long essay, and throw in some cool words for extra goodie points. </p>
<p>My advice for the SAT essay:
Just make stuff up. This sounds awful, but they don’t check for validity. Why not engineer the perfect quote to strengthen your essay? Do this and write a lot of sentences that are not awful…and you will get 10+</p>