The importance of essay

I know that essays are very important, especially to distinguish tons of students with 4.0 GPA and perfect SAT scores.
But, for someone with low SAT (both I and II) score, does it really help?
I don’t think a good essay will help my chance at top schools (such as JHU)
b/c I have 1350~1400 SAT and 540 on writing.
I think the fact that I’m a non-native English speaker(US citizen) will help me a little bit, but schools still want international students who are fluent in English, don’t they?
i’m so stressed out! I’m almost done with my essays, but now I have my SAT scores, I don’t know what to do…

<p>I have low test scores also. I wrote the best essay that I could, and I'm really happy with the outcome. My ec's are good and so is my transcript and recs. If you're in the same boat, I'd say essays help out. I think most schools will see low test scores and want to throw you out, but if they read a good essay, maybe they'll reconsider.</p>

<p>the essay depends on how good the school you're applying to is.</p>

<p>For huge state schools, essays generally don't mean anything except for borderline people who don't have the stats.</p>

<p>For more competitive schools like Ivys, etc...essays are very important.</p>

<p>if you're worried about writing bad essays because of your non-native English speaking status, ask one of your teachers to read it over.</p>

<p>I-V-I-E-S!!!</p>

<p>yes, i am a freak</p>

<p>lol, oh please, slipstream99 : )</p>

<p>Essays are only icing on the cake. If you don't have the test scores/GPA, colleges won't really care how nice/heartfelt an essay you can write. With average test scores/GPA, essays are definitely a scale tipper. But so are recs and EC's.</p>