Writing section required

Applying to College
1

<p>Quick note: I've lurked here for a while, decided to register just now and throw my hat in the ring. Great community you guys and gals have here.</p>

<p>I'm looking at applying to Carnegie Mellon University. They require either the SAT or ACT w/ writing and I've taken the SAT but I took the ACT w/o writing. My ACT scores are better, so obviously I would want to submit those. If I submit both tests will CMU take the writing from the SAT and consider the ACT for my other sections?</p>

<p>The other problem is that my writing section on the SAT is fairly low (compared to my other scores): a 590. I got a 33 and 31 on my ACT English and Reading scores respectively, so would that "make up for" my bad writing score? I also noticed that they just started requiring the writing component this year, so perhaps they don't even consider it very much?</p>

<p>Thanks for any help!</p>

2

<p>Hm.. if you send in both, the college (Carnegie or otherwise) is going to consider all aspects of both, not just certain specified sections. If you are worried about your SAT score, you might want to just retake the ACT with the writing option. If you prep a bit in advance, your score should be about the same as the previous one. If, for whatever reason, it's actually lower, you can withhold that score and just send in both (SAT and former ACT). A lot of colleges are not putting much admission weight on the writing section because they're examining the scores they get, so in that sense, I don't think it's considered that much. Still, if you do really poorly, it's not going to help.</p>