Every year, millions of students choose to take the optional essay section included in the SAT and ACT, many of whom spend lots of time and money preparing for it.
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But should they?
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The vast majority of colleges and universities have never required applicants to submit scores for these sections. And recently, the number of schools that do has become even smaller.
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Just last year, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Brown, California Institute of Technology, MIT, the University of Michigan and others joined the long list of schools that classify SAT and ACT essays as \u201coptional.\u201d
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In part, these schools justified their decision on the basis that requiring the essay section, which now costs extra, puts an unnecessary financial burden on low-income students and may even prevent some from applying.
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“More and more in admissions, schools are trying to eliminate barriers, not increase them. So they don\u2019t want students feeling like they have to pay more money to take the writing section,\u201d explained Joe Korfmacher<\/a>, a director of counseling at Collegewise. Although low-income students in many states are given the option to take the SAT or ACT for free during the school day, the subsidized tests don\u2019t usually include the essay section. So, if a student wants to take the essay, they typically have to pay for it. “Given the significant growth in free school-day testing, it’s important to enable students from low-income families to take advantage of the tests already offered by their school districts and not place an undue burden on them to go in separately outside of normal school hours,” Logan Powell, Brown’s dean of admission, said in a statement<\/a>. Additionally, schools and applicants have had issues in the past with how SAT and ACT essays are graded. Unlike the rest of the test, essay sections are graded by real people, thus making them not so \u201cstandardized.\u201d \u201cThere have been times in the past where the scores that students were receiving didn\u2019t make sense,\u201d said Korfmacher. Students would score very high on the rest of the test and see a significant drop-off in the essay section.\u00a0 And because most schools — particularly the selective ones — require applicants to submit other essays that typically do a better job at revealing their interests, passions and writing skills, there really isn\u2019t a need for students to write an essay on their SAT or ACT. \u201cI don\u2019t think the writing section tells you that much to begin with,\u201d said Allen Koh, CEO of Cardinal Education<\/a>. \u201cYou aren\u2019t often writing such essays in college, ever. So, I like the trend towards some schools not wanting that section anymore.\u201d In place of the SAT or ACT essay, Princeton<\/a> now requires applicants to submit a graded school paper. And other schools, including Brown and Michigan, recommend applicants do the same. \u201cAll of this testing combined can add up in terms of cost for a family, and we do not want the fees associated with the application process to be reasons for students not to apply to Princeton,\u201d Janet Rapelye, Princeton\u2019s dean of admissions, said in a statement<\/a>. In total, only a handful of colleges and universities — including those in the University of California system — currently require applicants to take the SAT or ACT essay. However, most test-takers still opt to take it. Out of the nearly 2 million students who took the SAT in 2019, 68 percent<\/a> of them decided to write the optional essay. And last year, nearly half<\/a> of ACT test-takers did the same. Taking the essay — whether it\u2019s required or not — is still typically a good idea, according to Koh. \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to go to the local state school, then you don\u2019t need to take it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to go to your state\u2019s flagship university or more competitive university — whether it\u2019s public or private — then you absolutely need it.\u201d \u201cTaking it doesn\u2019t really help you, but not taking it really hurts you,\u201d Koh continued. \u201cThere\u2019s not that much to do to prepare for it. Why are you not taking it? It\u2019s almost like you\u2019re trying to hide something.\u201d Even though a school may not require the essay section, it doesn\u2019t mean other students won\u2019t submit it, he explained. And students don\u2019t want to stand out as the one applicant who opted not to take it. Additionally, if a college or university \u201crecommends\u201d students take the essay section, as Duke, Stanford and many others do, Koh recommends not skipping it so students won\u2019t be seen by admissions officers as the odd one out. However, Koh suggests that the writing section is not something students should spend much time preparing for. Students \u201cshould spend almost no time (preparing for it),\u201d Koh said. \u201cIf a student is getting As and Bs in their English and history courses, they don\u2019t need to spend much time preparing for the writing.\u201d Allen Cheng, the co-founder of PrepScholar<\/a>, reinforces this. \u201cIt’s a minor portion of the test,\u201d he said. Cheng, too, thinks that it\u2019s typically a good idea for students to opt to take the writing section of the SAT and ACT. To make the right decision, though, students first need to have an idea of their intended schools. “The student should make a list of schools she wants to apply to and research their SAT\/ACT writing requirements. When every school the student knows she wants to apply to does NOT require the essay, and she’s certain she won’t add any other schools to her list, she does not need to take it,\u201d said Cheng. \u201cIn all other cases, we recommend taking it.” But, in general, Cheng believes students should focus most of their time preparing the core required SAT and ACT subjects. Students should only focus on improving their writing score if it is especially low compared to their scores on the other sections of the tests, he said. Korfmacher, however, takes a more matter-of-fact approach to whether students should choose to take the writing section of the SAT and ACT. Based on the small percentage of schools that require the test, he thinks it\u2019s unnecessary in most cases. \u201cThe vast vast majority, like 99.5 percent of colleges, no longer require the writing portions,\u201d said Korfmacher. \u201cSo, if a student tells me, \u2018I live in New Jersey, there\u2019s no way I\u2019m applying to the University of California system. It\u2019s not on my radar and I\u2019m not superstrong in writing,\u2019 I\u2019m going to tell them save your time, save your money, don\u2019t take it.\u201d However, \u201cIf a student excels in writing, is going for a journalism or English major, and they\u2019re going to knock the writing section out of the park, then yeah, go ahead and take it,\u201d he continued. There are some schools that take a definitive stance on whether or not they want students to take the essay section of the SAT and ACT. Caltech<\/a> and the University of Chicago<\/a>, for example, clearly state they won\u2019t consider SAT and ACT essay scores. However, the vast majority of schools either \u201crecommend\u201d students take the SAT and ACT essays, or worse, consider them \u201coptional.\u201d And this commonly leaves students at a loss. They don\u2019t want to allocate time and money towards preparing for and taking the essays if admissions officers are going to just brush over them. But at the same time, they don\u2019t want to skip over the essays and come across to admissions officers as a slacker or someone who is trying to hide their lack of writing skills. According to Korfmacher, making SAT and ACT essay sections optional is \u201cmisleading, confusing and puts pressure on students to take it even though it\u2019s not required.\u201d \u201cI think they should be either required or not required,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd it should clearly say, \u2018the writing section will not be part of our new process.\u2019\u202f\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every year, millions of students choose to take the optional essay section included in the SAT and ACT, many of whom spend lots of time and money preparing for it. But should they? The vast majority of colleges and universities have never required applicants to submit scores for these sections. 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<\/p>\n\n\n\nShould applicants opt to take the SAT\/ACT essay, anyway? <\/strong>
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nColleges and universities should take a definitive stance <\/strong>
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