I want to take a moment to address some common confusion about the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) portion of the GMAT exam.\u00a0 As many of you inveterate students know, the AWA portion involves two essays, and you get a maximum of 30 minutes for each essay.\u00a0 And no, you don\u2019t get 45 minutes for the second essay if the first only takes you 15 minutes.\u00a0 As I like to say:\u00a0 \u201cThere are no rollover minutes.\u00a0 This is Verizon, not AT&T!\u201d\u00a0 Also, the essays are always the first section of the exam, although the ordering of the essays may vary.<\/p>\n
But many of you also probably know that the essay portion is not nearly as consequential as the multiple-choice portions.\u00a0 The essays are not<\/em> part of your 800 composite score and are instead scored on a separate scale out of 6.0 in decrements of 0.5.\u00a0 Generally, admissions committees use the essay scores to judge whether or not you actually wrote your application essays to the school.\u00a0 If you write a fantastic admissions essay filled with prose worthy of a Pulitzer but get a 2.0 AWA score, the admissions committee\u2019s going to be suspicious.<\/p>\n But in the end, your composite score out of 800 weighs much more heavily on the committee\u2019s collective mind.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy, then, to come up with arguments for blowing off the essay and focusing the bulk of your attention on the multiple-choice sections.\u00a0 But is this really wise?<\/p>\n One time, a student told me that he was going to take the GMAT a second time.\u00a0 The first time he took the test, he didn\u2019t achieve his desired composite score.\u00a0 But he got a perfect 6.0 on the AWA.\u00a0 So in his mind, this justified the following strategy:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to completely skip the essays the next time I take the test.\u00a0 It\u2019s not important anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Several students have suggested similar strategies to me, and I understood where they were coming from.\u00a0 Skipping the essays outright makes the test shorter and allows you to conserve some mental energy for the multiple-choice sections.\u00a0 But consider the following scenario:\u00a0 You\u2019re on the admissions committee of a prestigious business school.\u00a0 You\u2019re reviewing an applicant, and you see that he got a 6.0 AWA on the GMAT on his first try, but got a 0.0 the second time.\u00a0 You don\u2019t like the sight of the 0.0, and although you recognize that the applicant has the capability to score a 6.0, it\u2019s readily apparent (at least in your mind) that the applicant feels cocky or lax enough to blow a whole section of the test off and just assume that it won\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n Now, it may be true that some individual committees won\u2019t care as much.\u00a0 But are you willing to take that risk?\u00a0 What if you\u2019re applying to a competitive school that requires you to present every advantage you can?\u00a0 Allowing a 0.0 to show up on your transcript doesn\u2019t seem very prudent.<\/p>\n Besides, does the one hour of essay-writing really drain you of so much energy that it makes a statistically significant difference on your performance for the rest of the test?\u00a0 You might assume the answer is yes.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a pretty tenuous generalization.\u00a0 If you took the GMAT hundreds of times with the AWA and hundreds of times without, maybe we\u2019d have some statistical data to go on.\u00a0 But as is, assuming the AWA will take away your mojo so much that your score will drop by a significant margin is unfounded speculation at best.<\/p>\n Another thing to keep in mind:\u00a0 some students actually like the essays, because they allow you to shake off initial nerves.\u00a0 You get the least important part of the test out of the way first, and by the time you\u2019re done, you\u2019ve settled into a groove and gotten used to your surroundings.\u00a0 For some students, this allows them to transition into the multiple-choice sections more relaxed and clear-minded.\u00a0 This might be the case for you too.<\/p>\n So all in all, you might in theory be able to get away with blowing off the essays.\u00a0 But all things considered, it\u2019s not a risk worth taking, and a poor or nonexistent AWA score will not look good to admissions committees.\u00a0 The essays are the least consequential part of the test, so investing just a little bit of time and energy in them should not have a great effect on your composite score.<\/p>\n