How important is the Writing section of the SAT?

<p>I got my lowest subscore in Writing, that's kind of annoying. I have an 800 and 750 on my other two for a single-sitting. I got a 680 in Writing though, would that make my application look a lot worse. Also for the ACT, how much does the writing section count. I got a 35 Composite score, but only a 9 on the writing.</p>

<p>Just role with it. Make up for it somewhere else on your application. Write an amazing essay. That will show them that you're a good writer.</p>

<p>the essayS ARE much more important than these stupid numbers, I say this for the millionth time, I got a 380 verbal and a 470 writing score and still got in, as a transfer, which is harder than getting in as a freshman, because my essays were so unique and everyone loved them (they were about women boobs), so just focus on the essays now and forget about that $hit</p>

<p>wow. that's interesting...! hmm unbelievable in fact. Guess you had nothing to lose...in what context did you use that topic, rejectedfromMIT?</p>

<p>and just wanted to say...they don't call their admissions 'case by case basis' for nothing. and they don't ever base your 'case' on your SAT score, least of all the score for one particular section. if you go back a few threads, you'll see a rather funny quote about 'mini donald trumps with 2400 SATs getting rejected'</p>

<p>:D</p>

<p>Heh. same problem. 780/780, but 650 writing.</p>

<p>The mode and style in which SAT essays are meant to be written in... they really aren't useful/used in later life. For people who spent a remarkable time in their higher grades writing academic langugage suited more for theses, it's a huge penalty.</p>

<p>Same problem... 800/800 but 730 writing... Oh well I hope my essays would try to make the deficit up a bit.</p>

<p>I get the feeling they look at writing less than the other 2 scores. They really don't consider the essay score at all:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/education/edlife/SAT.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/education/edlife/SAT.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/satwriting.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/satwriting.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The way they score the essay is dumb. But this makes it possible to "game" the system if you know the tricks. The biggest mistake people make is approaching it as if it were a real actual creative writing assignment instead of just writing to a simple formula. One authority claimed he could accurately predict the score on the essays from across the room (without being able to read the content) just by looking at the length of the words, sentences and total word count. </p>

<p>They added the writing section to keep Univ. of Cal. system from dropping SAT completely. It doesn't seem to have worked . Lots complain that it's made the SAT too long. I bet they will drop it (or at least the essay) after a few years because it's basically a flop that nobody likes.</p>

<p>haha this is weird, because i did very good on my writing compared to math and reading. haha. strange.</p>

<p>you guys say it as if you guys are excellent writers but just cant write for the SAT but thats hardly the case</p>

<p>my friends, who are good at writing, do well on the writing portion. so you cant say that its not a good gauge for your writing ability just because you guys dont do well.</p>

<p>ok buddy lets look at it in terms of venn diagrams if that helps you.</p>

<p>set 1 - there's us, who are good at writing but bad at SAT writing
set 2 - and some others, who are bad at writing, but good at the SAT
and there's your friends...the intersection of set 1 and 2.</p>

<p>savvy??</p>

<p>tomorrow we'll analyze the problem in terms of second derivatives and concavities of curves. class dismissed.</p>

<p>sigh...the stuff you here these days...</p>

<p>thats like saying</p>

<p>set 1 - good at math
set 2 - good at literature
the intersection of set 1 and set 2 - good at both math and literature</p>

<p>i would prefer those in the intersection of set 1 and set 2.</p>

<p>no need for you to explain these to me in simple terms. kthxbye</p>

<p>I know exactly what you mean about SAT Writing not being
the same as normal writing.</p>

<p>When I took the SAT the first time, I actually wrote a decent essay
and ended with a 9. This October I wrote drivel but rubric specific
drivel...fill up the two pages, give at least 2 examples one historic,
one literature and don't worry about being historically or otherwise
correct about the facts you state....my essay was
bordering on drivel compared to my first essay and I ended up with
a 11 :confused:</p>

<p>"800/800 but 730 writing... Oh well I hope my essays would try to make the deficit..."</p>

<p>Poor thing...</p>

<p>true, first time I took the SAT I used non-zero sum economics and international trade as my example of why coop was better than competition...10</p>

<p>next time, I explained why I should get a gym credit for playing a varsity sport, threw in a couple historical examples, and gasp...my score went up</p>

<p>I think they weight the sections pretty equally at Penn. The regional rep for Philly cam to my school, and that's what she said. Its possible that she's just saying that... but she's the one actually reading my application</p>