College Entrance Exams Should I take the SAT essay section? Written by Sally Gangaon February 8th, 2017 I started my career as an assistant director of admission at Reed College, my alma mater, where I ran the transfer program. From there, I went to Whittier College as an associate director, and then moved on to The University of Chicago, again as associate director, where I was in charge of the application reading process and the awarding of our top merit scholarships. The diversity of my experience was very helpful when I transferred to the high school side, where I assisted students applying to colleges at all levels of selectivity. Learn More About Sally essays, new sat, sat, With the redesign to the SAT exam that was introduced in 2016, there is no longer a Writing Section to the SAT. Instead, it has been subsumed into the Reading & Writing section. However, there is still an optional Essay section. Given that the SAT essay is optional and not scored on the 200 to 800 score range like the Reading & Writing and Math sections, it appears devalued and many students may choose not to take it. Indeed, many colleges do not require it. However, some colleges do require the optional Essay section. Since most students will be taking the SAT for the first time in January or March of their junior year, before they’ve established their college list, we at College Coach recommend that they complete the SAT Essay section as they can’t know yet, in most cases, if they’ll need it. And nothing is more frustrating than finding out that your first choice college won’t consider your highest score SAT just because you didn’t take the Essay section! Related Resources Read | Posted on October 23rd, 2023 Should I Submit SAT or ACT Scores to Test Optional Schools? Read | Posted on June 15th, 2023 Standardized Testing Policies in 2023 Read | Posted on January 17th, 2023 Does Your PSAT Score Matter?