<p>Why does Chicago care about the critical reading section of the SAT, yet not the writing section (not even the grammar subscore)?</p>
<p>They have 4-5 samples of your writing in the application. They can tell if you’re a good writer through those, and feel that a score that was given to you by some College Board or ACT grader, who read your essay in 45 seconds, is not a good measure of your writing ability. An in all actuality, essays that are churned out in 30-40 minutes are not as good as essays that you actually take the time to write. So why use a score from an essay that was probably written poorly because of time constraints and then graded by someone they don’t know?</p>
<p>Especially since there is very little timed writing in college.</p>
<p>Why is the grammar subscore not considered? A college admissions essay does not demonstrate one’s abilities in grammar, as it may have been edited by another.</p>
<p>I would agree with this logic if the submitted essays were always the applicant’s work product, but they aren’t. I dated this guy who’s very wealhy. He’s a genius at math but he can’t write at all. He scored a 800 on Math and a 730 on CR, but he scored only a 590 on writing. His total SAT score (2120) is OK but probably not good enough for top schools that consider all three, so he’s decided to focus on those schools that only score math and CR. His parents then hired a consultant who ended up writing most of his essays. He sent me his essays and I could tell immediately that he didn’t write them, but how would a school know? For him, the SAT writing score is much more indictative of his abilities than are the essays. I am sure many people use consultants like this.</p>
<p>Universities receive the essay (I believe) from the SAT, and most likely will notice when a student has a horrifically written essay on the SAT but an amazing application essay. </p>
<p>In regards to the critical reading section though, it seems odd to me that this section should be given more weight over the writing section since the sentence completion, for most people at least (including myself), is really a game of luck. You either happen to get lucky and know the meanings of the words in the answer choices or you don’t. Many people could complete the sentences given with advanced words, but those words just happen to not be there on that specific test. On top of that, some of the reading comprehension questions have answers that can sometimes be way too ambiguous, and, in my opinion, do not adequately show a student’s level of reading comprehension. Another thing is that some students may have background information about the topics discussed in the passages and hence will have a much easier time answering the questions and will likely get a higher score not because they have a more advanced level of reading comprehension, but simply because they have more knowledge in a specific area not related to reading comprehension.</p>
<p>The grammar section in the writing portion, however, is a completely different case. Regardless of which test one takes, they all test the same grammar rules, although in different contexts. No one can come into the test having an advantage over his peers besides a more extensive and advanced knowledge of grammar rules which is, after all, what the section is supposed to test. </p>
<p>I understand the problems that people have with the essay, but I don’t understand the problem with considering the grammar section. It seems, to me at least, that the grammar section is more accurate in its assessment than the critical reading sections is in its.</p>
<p>motion, I don’t think that’s how it works for most schools. My understanding is that CB sends scores to schools electronically and essays are sent only if requested by the school. I’ve spoken to many adcoms and none has ever read an essay from the SAT. I scored a 800 on writing and only a 690 in math. I’ve been trying to convince schools that the writing score is more meaningful than they want to believe, so I know quite a bit about how schools use (or don’t use) the SAT essay.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, I was not aware of that (not that it’d really matter for me). I’m sure, though, that they would request one if someone got a 6 on their SAT essay but wrote an amazing college essay.</p>
<p>motion, the guy I’m talking about is applying only to schools that look at math and cr, so I don’t think they will ever see a bad writing essay score. Witout seeing such score, how could they ever realize that his app essays are better than his SAT essay? I’m convinced he’s going to get away with it.</p>
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<p>If someone is genuinely bad at writing and is going to a school like UChicago, at which there seems to be a lot of writing…aren’t they in trouble anyway?</p>
<p>I got 780 in CR, 800 in Math but only 680 in Writing (8 essay) - despite the fact that both my English teacher and I consider my writing skill one of my strengths. This may be simply because I never prepared for the SAT I, while SAT Writing is the section in which heavy preparation most likely pays off. A student trained to churn out a two-page essay in twenty-five minutes will get a high score in SAT Writing, but that does not reflect his actual writing ability.</p>
<p>The thing is, the SAT graders are (like AP graders) looking for cookie-cutter essays.
That is, intro-body-body-body-conclusion. With topic sentences and evidence. That’s ALL they want. It’s not too terribly difficult to get a good score on them. And because they grade them so remedially, they aren’t a good show of you’re writing. They don’t show your eloquence, word-choice, or how witty it is.</p>
<p>Ah, yes, my writing score was HORRENDOUS relative to what I thought I could do, but what really gave me a hoot was my good friend the grammar fiend didn’t score well, either.</p>
<p>I’m convinced the Chicago essays are like those cell phones that kids can hear but adults can’t. I don’t think any non-17-year old could write one of those essays and pass it off for a 17-year-old’s work. If you really wanted to fly under the radar, you would have a friend write your essay for you.</p>
<p>But yes, anybody who hires these “consultants” who “help” write the essay are about to have the you-know-what kicked out of them should Chicago make a lapse in judgment. They will be wasting more money for an education they hate, and they will be sorely miserable here in a way that not even Dante could describe. Sure, maybe the “consultant” can help you write about your world travel experiences, but I don’t think the “consultant” will help you on your sosc papers and will certainly not help you in class discussions.</p>
<p>Just sayin’.</p>
<p>In some cases, the admissions officers at Chicago are not getting an accurate impression of the applicant’s writing abilities: he or she could bomb the SAT essay, similarly bomb the grammar portion, and turn in an excellent essay. A fellow 17-year-old could write it for them or an adult could; the idea that an admissions officer can just tell the difference is absurd.</p>
<p>Actually, those essays will merely get you an 8 neogop (from my experience at least). My friends and I wrote those kinds of essays for the first time we took the SATs and we all got 8’s. For some reason, I got an 11 on a horrifically written essay that was based around Friedrich Nietzsche, and I’m <em>hoping</em> I’ll get a 12 on this decent one I wrote yesterday that I thought was better. All you have to do is write about something that impresses them because after all…they spend 30 seconds on the essay. You either impress them with proper usage of sophisticated words or proper usage of sophisticated ideas to get a 12 (again, from the experience of my friends and myself). In other words, you have to ‘wow’ them in order to get the 12.</p>
<p>And yea, if you can’t write well I wouldn’t imagine that you’d do well at the University of Chicago, let alone any serious institution of higher education.</p>
<p>^^ True, but you can’t get all philosophical on them. You have to sound smart, but you can’t be too complex in your writing… after all, they spend very little time grading each one (which is why I’m talking about cookie cutters). Of course you have to WRITE well (proper grammar, word choice, etc), but they tend to score higher if its a simple outline, and not too elaborate. (Just for the record, I got 10-10-11 on ACT writing with this “philosophy”… not that it matters at UChicago.)</p>
<p>IMO, the essay is the only part of the SAT that truly tests your critical thinking. You have to defend a certain stance in 25 minutes, and it truly takes wit to come up with a coherent and substantial argument in that time period. Perhaps the score given isn’t useful for admissions consideration, but certainly the essay itself may be of some use.</p>
<p>@motion: No, it doesn’t. You can have the same two examples to use for nearly every single prompt. As long as you have enough information about those two events/people/books, you can write a cookie cutter essay - which is why the essay score is completely useless. I agree that maybe the grammar subscore could be useful.</p>
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<p>The funny (ironic?) thing is that this is also true for one of the essays (the “choose a book you’ve read this year . . .” essay) on the AP Lit exam, which really is supposed to test your critical thinking. But seriously, all you have to do is choose two books and adapt them to every prompt. <em>g</em></p>
<p>@neltharion: I don’t know much about the AP stuff, but I’m assuming there are other essays as well on the exam? At least it (hopefully) isn’t written in 25 minutes, and read in 1 minute…</p>