According to a survey of college admissions officers at 374 schools conducted at Kaplan, as much as 58 percent of colleges will be checking the SAT essays of applicants for potential writing level discrepancies, while 15 percent will be evaluating the SAT essay of all applicants.

Timothy Brunold, dean of undergraduate admissions at USC said, "we will definitely take a look at the SAT essay if the student scored poorly on the writing section but wrote a brilliant personal essay."

Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, says the essay test will give admissions officers a better feel for applicants' writing and verbal skills and their ability to perform under ``constraint.''

Ted Spencer, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and trustee of the College Board stated, "The SAT essay will be a first draft, written under timed conditions not unlike the on-demand writing of a college "blue book" exam. It will complement the student's traditional application essay and give us a better, more complete understanding of the student's writing abilities."

Jerome A Lucido Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Director of Undergraduate Admissions of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said that the SAT writing sample "will make the exam a more relevant and useful tool for evaluating student performance, for predicting college success, and for stimulating the high school curriculum."

Ben Streetman, Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin said, "This new requirement will be a great help to us in choosing students who can succeed in engineering. One of the most important skills an engineer has is the ability to present his or her ideas verbally and in writing. Virtually every engineering project begins with a written proposal, requires interim reports and culminates in a written summary. Professional success in engineering depends not only on the ability to apply the techniques of math and science to solve problems, but also on the engineer's ability to write those proposals and reports in a way that helps others understand the work."

What does this mean for your student?

It means your student might not get into the college of her choice if her SAT essay is of much lower quality than her admissions essay.

It means that students won't be able to fool admissions officers into thinking they have better skills by hiring someone else to write their essays for them.

. It means that even if your student is majoring in math, science or engineering she must do well on the SAT Essay.

It means that your student might not get into the college of his choice if after reading his essay they don't think he'll do well on college essay exams.

It means your student must do well on this portion of the test to maximize her chances of getting into many top schools.

How can my student do well on the SAT Essay?

As I define it, doing well on the SAT Essay involves succeeding in doing two things at once:

1. Writing an essay that will score well

and

2. Writing an essay that will impress college admissions officers

For your student to score well she needs to learn the five characteristics that all high-scoring essays have in common and develop the skills to put these into her writing in under 25 minutes and during the pressure of test day.

Second, your student must write an essay that shows how insightful and intelligent he is so that admissions officers are impressed by the quality of the writing.

To learn what it takes to write a great essay I recommend the following resources:

The Official Guide to the New SAT published by the College Board and available on their web site College Board http://www.collegeboard.com/.

This site has several examples of essays graded by College Board graders which can give you a good sense of what it takes to get a high score.

Second, I recommend the website Rocket Review http://www.rocketscore.com/ which has a computerized program to help you grade several essay topics available there.

Third, I recommend my e-book "How to Write Fast and Effectively for the New SAT" which teaches the 6 steps to success on the SAT Essay, includes dozens of classroom tested exercises and many examples of real high scoring essays. It is available at Sat Essay.

Rodney Daut
http://www.sat-essay.net/