<p>Does poor penmanship affect the scoring of the SAT essay? DD attends a school that went paperless six years ago so she rarely writes on paper. Her writing looks childish. Despite awards for writing contests and perfect MC scores she has never had a essay score above 8. Time is not an issue.</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>^My handwriting is borderline unreadable (for most it actually is), and I think they’ve given me a 10 each time because they looked for key words that I use or something. I’ve gotten a 10 every time. Just follow the guidelines of how you were taught to write a basic essay, have a position on the question, stay on topic and you’ll do fine.</p>
<p>My sister’s handwriting is ATROCIOUS and she got a 12. I always write in cursive on my SAT essay and I got an 11. It probably doesn’t matter but I always do my best.</p>
<p>I’ve written in cursive each time and gotten a 12. I think penmanship definitely helps - the essay readers only spend a minute or two on each essay, and first impression matters a lot.</p>
<p>My daughter also never received higher than an 8 on her essay despite earning fives on the AP tests that were heavy on essay writing, winning her high school’s award for her junior research paper, and in general being a VERY good writer. I also wondered whether her awful handwriting had something to do with it. </p>
<p>She had a classmate (I have no idea how pretty her writing was) who consistantly earned 12s. The classmate made up all book references and was in general a really good BSer. </p>
<p>I also think that sometimes super bright kids (and of course my kid is lol) also make some connections that are not as direct or obvious as they could be. I do not think this works in their favor. We always just laughed off the eights. Her other scores made the eights look like mistakes.</p>
<p>Thank you MD Mom. That makes sense to me.</p>
<p>I consider myself a good writer, and on 2 SATs have gotten a 76 and 78 MC, but made a 9 on the essay both times, despite thinking my essays were great.</p>
<p>I also have terrible handwriting.</p>
<p>Nah. my bro’s writing looks like the trail of an epileptic spider dipped in graphite but he got a 12 nyway.</p>
<p>But different people grade essays, javalava, so what bugs one grader might not bug another. </p>
<p>Bad handwriting does not bother me, but that does not mean it does not bother everyone. When DD was a freshman in HS, she had a freshly minted teacher who was grading her very low. I told her to clean up her handwriting and it helped. </p>
<p>I really have no idea about the SAT, but I do think that some people pre-judge before they ever start to read. I also think that DD did not care a whole lot about the writing section because she was early enough in the admissions process (two years ago) that few schools were even looking at that section.</p>