Application essays and college writing

sjmom2329
Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:49:16 +0000

The one good thing about the SAT essay is that it demonstrates how quickly a student can organize thoughts, develop an idea and come up with supporting data. It’s not meant to be a “polished” piece of writing, but it’s something that a college could evaluate for anyone taking the SAT. I think its use would be as a benchmark for comparing students to one another (everyone gets the same 25 minutes to put something together) and also as a check on the admissions essay. If the Admissions essay is truly wonderful – elegant, persuasive, insightful – but the SAT sample shows a student who can’t write a complete sentence, then that’s info for a college to evaluate.