<p>Exactly how much emphasis do colleges that require writing place on the writing portion of the ACT test? (Say Emory, Rice, Etc.) </p>
<p>Also, if your writing test and your essay severely differs in terms of quality, will college admission officers look at it any differently? Maybe suspect plagiarism?</p>
<p>A few schools simply use the writing portion of the ACT to compare with your admissions essay. If there is a drastic difference, then they will expect foul play (or that you cheated off someone else in your admissions essay). I would say that you still want to do well on it even if it doesn’t count for your English ACT.</p>
<p>Seriously? But how can an essay someone wrote in 30 minutes be compared to an essay that someone spent 2 months writing, rewriting, and revising?</p>
<p>I don’t know. It’s college people, lol. I know its just one of the uses. There could be many uses, depending on which college. Not much help there, sorry.</p>
<p>Each college is different. Some minimally use the Writing score, some don’t use it at all, some use it for English placement purposes, some totally use it.</p>
<p>I think that if your writing score is less than an 8, and you write a great essay, colleges might suspect that you got a lot of “help” with your essay…not necessarily cheating, but maybe a lot of “corrections” and input.</p>
<p>However, I think that if your essay is an 8 or higher, I wouldn’t worry. Someone who can write at least an 8, can do a rewrite on his own to improve his essay because he’ll have the time.</p>
<p>BTW…I would think that top 25-40 ranked schools probably do use the Writing section to determine acceptance…the lesser schools may not.</p>