Hello, I plan to apply to schools which require SAT/ACT writing. I currently have a 34 on the ACT without writing and a 1500 on the new SAT with a writing score of 18 of 24. I don’t think that score is very good especially for colleges like Duke of Vanderbilt. However, I have found NOTHING online saying what an acceptable score on the new SAT writing would be. I am willing to take the ACT with writing as I prefer the ACT’s argument format to the SAT’s analysis format. Do I need to do this or is the 18 on the SAT good? How much do schools pay attention to writing scores (especially top tier schools like Duke and Vanderbilt)?
Nobody’s going to give a crap about the new SAT Essay, because it is new, and because it shows schools absolutely nothing about your writing abilities (save for the fact that you can regurgitate basic arguments writers use during an editorial). I don’t think they put much stock in the ACT Essay either. Sweat other stuff this summer… but make sure to take the ACT with writing every time from now on (better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it).
No college admin or faculty I’ve spoken with believes the SAT essay is a decent predictor of writing ability or college aptitude. There is some attention being paid to scores beliw 6, as they indicate likely ESL issues, but beyond that, it’s being utterly ignored.
@ProfessorD I got 6 in every category. Do I need to just take the ACT with writing or am I ready to apply with my 34 and 1500? Will colleges be upset that my only writing test was on the SAT. I got a 4 on AP Eng Lang and Comp as well.
@ProfessorD - total scores below 6? Isn’t 2 the lowest you can get on a section, so a 6 is the minimum score?
And I can’t believe a score < 6 in one section is any indicator of an ESL issue.
@thshadow - scores in individual subsections of the essay range from 1 to 4 from each of two scorers. An aggregate score of 2-8 is generated from those. Averaging a 1-2 in any section would give a total score from any one scorer in the ‘below 6’ range (per the examples and rubric provided by the College Board). This might well indicate significant difficulties with reading comprehension, grammar conventions, and/or structure. Any one (or even all three) of these do not necessarily mean the student absolutely has ESL issues, but they are enough of a red flag to merit some further investigation. Determining whether actual ESL or other issues exist which might interfere with an applicant’s ability to handle the linguistic hurdles of college work would require further assessment.
That said, let me reiterate: the new SAT essay is not being scored by professional writing instructors. It is being scored under a rubric which is deeply flawed, by people with no expertise in writing assessment. The official examples offered by the College Board give plenty of reasons for educators to be thoroughly skeptical of the results. Accordingly, no colleague with whom I am familiar thinks the essay will be used as anything other than a minir data point as I described above.
You’re saying a score below 6 from one scorer? That’s a weird way to describe a cutoff, as the SAT reports the aggregate score, and doesn’t show the score from each scorer. I think you’re saying if the sum of the 3 scores (which is 3 times (2 to 8), i.e. between 6 and 24) is < 12, that’s a red flag? Not sure why you said “6”. TBH I’m still not sure I know what you’re saying.
FTR, DD scored 5-4-6 = 15 (with her 760M / 710V). That’s certainly not a very good essay score. But if you’re saying that it’s ESL territory - that’s crazy-talk IMO.
Yes, the SAT reports the combined scores of two graders to the test-taker. By “under a 6,” I’m talking about scores which would have rated such a score from each individual grader. I’ve seen score reports listed both ways, by individual and combined. I was, and am, referring to a single score, as that’s the way we assess them at my university (though we also use a combined score for some placement functions).
There is no such thing “ESL Territory.” Individual writers can end up with low, even miserable, scores on essays for a wide variety of reasons. However, writers unfamiliar with the conventions of English language often demonstrate this difficulty more obviously in timed, proctored writing exercises, arguably moreso than in, say, high-school English grades or even application essays, where they have more time for revision and, potentially, outside assistance.
These graders, remember, don’t have training in writing assessment. SAT adminstration requires only that they have a bachelors degree - not even in a humanities field (though they state it as a preference). The available examples demonstrate the problems with this approach: the essays garnering top scores are peppered with impressive-sounding polysyllables used incorrectly, empty rhetoric, extended quotations without any deep analysis…they’re crap. They’re exactly the type of crap you get when you shove a bunch of unsuspecting highschoolers into a Kaplsn test-prep program which tells them that long words = smart, and then tell someone with no expertise to grade the essay by rubric. Worthless. Worse than worthless, as I and my colleagues then have to spend three terms breaking the poor students of these terrible habits.
Blesh. Sorry, ranting. Anyhoo, the converse is that even the untrained slightly-better-than-minimum-wage-drones grading the SAT essays can recognize truly bad writing. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean “ESL.” That’s just one of many possibilities. The next thing to do is assess why that particular student got a low score, and particularly whether their writing bears the common markers - prepositional misuse, formulaic phrasing, dropped articles, mistaken pronouns, etc. - that merit an ESL consideration.
I’d go ahead and take the ACT with essay because some scholarships require having both on the SAME test date. I actually had a student 3 years ago who never took the ACT with essay, and he missed out on a Presidential-level full ride at a major state university b/c he didn’t have the essay with his highest ACT composite.