How important is the SAT essay?

Hi, I’m a junior in high school and I recently got my SAT score back. While I was pleased with my overall score, I didn’t do as well as I planned on the essay( got a 6-6-5). I’m curious as to how heavily my essay score is weighed in the admissions process and if I should retake it. All insight is appreciated, thanks!!!

Don’t retake it just for the essay, it’s really not important as long as your reading/writing and composite scores are where you want them.

I did even worse than you on the essay and writing is meant to be my strong point…but I’m just hoping that colleges will see that it was just a mess up (I really don’t know what happened, it was a horrendous essay) when compared to the essays I’ve submitted as well as my grades in English exams. I highly doubt the essay score would make or break anything, how did you do on the actual CR and M?

@greenstudent 720 CR 690 M

@greenstudent 720 CR 690 M

I’ve heard that most schools are not looking at the essay numbers at all. Our college counselor said she sat in the admissions discussions at an Ivy League college recently and was surprised to learn that the score for the essays never is even mentioned.

@stemmmm wow that’s a relief! I’ve been so worried about my essay, I’m too embarassed to actually share the score… What sort of thing did seem important in the discussion do you know?

@buffalo124 That’s a great score, I really wouldn’t worry one bit about the essay.

Ha! That would have been a good question to ask. We were focused on whether we needed to retake SATs because of the essay score. As soon as we heard it didn’t matter to most colleges, we tuned out.