<p>To what extent do HYPS look at the writing score on the SAT. I believe that until the last cycle, these scores did not feature very prominently in admission decisions. What about this year?</p>
<p>I believe they'll start getting some more significance, but still won't factor much. However, if your Writing score is 200 points lower than your other scores, it might cause a red flag.</p>
<p>They'll look at it, but it's still not sure how much weight to put on it.</p>
<p>Kaplan recently surveyed 374 schools regarding the weight given to the writing section. If I were more computer savvy I could find you a link to it. Maybe someone else can help.
The bottom line is that even among HYPS there was wide divergence in their treatment of the writing score. I can not remember the results except that Harvard claimed to give the writing "equal weight" to the CR and Math. I believe Yale gave it "no weight" and that P and S were listed as either "undecided" or as giving it "some weight".
This whole issue has become something of an embarrassment. Before they implemented a change in format, the College Board should have ascertained that adcoms would be more receptive to the new score.</p>
<p>I think that schools should definitely begin to consider the writing score. SAT takers are spending a great deal of time and energy on this section--especially since the essay is what they first encounter on the exam. The test takers ability to give their all to the other sections of the exam i hindered by this writing section when it doesn't "count" anyway. If colleges were not going to consider this section, especially HYPS, then they should have prevented the college board from adding the section altogether. And, saying that they do not look at the section is definitely inaccurate...if a super-high score or super-low score is listed next to two similar CR and math scores, they just can't overlook it. </p>
<p>I know that the OP wanted to know about ivy league schools, but how do you think writing will be considered by all schools, generally, during the upcoming application season?</p>
<p>The College Board College profiles, based on Common Data Set filings by each college, show which test scores were considered in the most recently reported application cycle for each college. You can see that Harvard </p>
<p>and Princeton </p>
<p>both report interquartile ranges for writing section scores, indicating that many students reported those scores, and that those scores were considered in making admission decisions. </p>
<p>Yale </p>
<p>also reports considering writing scores, as does Stanford. </p>
<p>A contrasting example is Dartmouth, which says explicitly that it doesn't consider writing section scores, and sure enough its College Board profile </p>
<p>doesn't report an interquartile range for scores on that section. This way of checking should be generalizable to other colleges.</p>
<p>That should help.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your comments. My son's cousellor said that most universities do not put much emphasis on the 'writing scores'- my son has not done as well in that section as compared to the others which is why we wondered about his chances at HYPS.</p>
<p>Just a SWAG, but on a scale of "too soon to tell"=1 to "fully understood"=10, SAT writing is probably at a 4 right now. I think it will take about 4 more years for schools to fully factor in SAT writing scores. The initial group just completed their freshman year. Once this group graduates and the schools have time to look at the data they will have a good grasp on how to weight the writing score.</p>