<p>According to their Common Data Sets, some colleges use the essays as a "validity check" for your Common App. essay (one glaring example is Duke). If that's the case, then would your essay score have more weight to it than it seems? Or do the schools not really care?</p>
<p>You get 25 minutes for the sat essay and 30 minutes for the act essay and weeks and even months to write your common app essay. I REALLY don’t see how they can be used as validity checks for the common app essay, especially when it’s been proven there’s a high correlation between essay length and score (for the sat at least).</p>