http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051102/news_1n2essay.html -- drove me crazy

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<p>This article has been driving me crazyy for the last week!!!!
My SAT essay was indeed a disaster. I mean it has been more than a month since I gave the test and after that I read some good books on improving writing skills and it worked!!! I really feel that my personal statement is far better and is indeed different from my SAT essay. To be honest, I did gave the personal statement to many of my friends, relatives and one of my teachers. They all gave good comments which also contributed in improving the essay significantly. Did I do anything wrong by doing that?</p>

<p>I gave the SAT 2 times. My writing scores were only 640 both times, whereas my CR scores were 580 and 690. I got 8 in my essay both times. My english scores at high school for the last three years are 81, 72 and 76 (BTW 75 and above is equivalent to a grade A in my school system).</p>

<p>This week I tried to force my personal statement into my SAT essay by degrading its quality and making some mistakes on purpose, the very same that I made in my SAT essay. Just to throw adcoms off the suspicion that someone else could have written it! Am I doing the right thing?</p>

<p>This is really not fair!! You cannot compare the two writings. The SAT essay was more descriptive whereas the personal statement is usually more autobiographical.</p>

<p>What do you think????????</p>

<p>I also have a good recommendation from my English teacher.</p>

<p>purposely putting in mistakes? sorry, that's retarded.</p>

<p>agreed. Adcoms will not really do that only in extreme cases. I.e you have a very low GPA, No ecs, horrible SAts, and you submit in an essay that looks like it has been written by Ernest Hemingway or William Shakespeare...</p>

<p>...I really hope this doesnt happen to me. I. um...kind of lied on my SAT essay...</p>

<p>so? A lot of people lie on their SAT essays. Unless you lied about being a Russian Immigrant or something, it's not gonna matter.</p>

<p>WOw. Thanks a lot. I should be writing my SAT essay more carefully then.</p>

<p>Chill, you guys. The people on the adcoms know what an SAT essay is. They know it's a 25 minute essay and the markers are quite generous. Somebody told me that as long as you get a composite score above 8, you're cool. It's only odd if they see that you have say, a 550 in writing, and you write this totally gorgeous essay. Then they're going to have to raise their eyebrows. Besides, they also understand that since the common app essay topics are pretty free, kids can start prepping as early as they want. The can edit for a whole year if they wanted to! So don't worry.</p>

<p>The essay is mighty important though. Woot. That makes me happy. </p>

<p>I got published again! Yay!</p>

<p>And purposely making your essay worse is not that smart. See, if an adcom member found that out, they would consider you to be insecure about your own writing. If you've worked hard on this essay, THIS IS YOUR TIME TO SHINE! </p>

<p>Changing your essay to make it equitable to a pathetic essay written in less than half an hour, is basically saying that you're changing your stylle to "please" the admissions officers. Applcations aren't for you to suck up to the adcom, they're a chance for you to show off how awesome you are.</p>