SAT Essay: What can I write about?

What can I write my SAT essay about?
In a word, anything. The SAT is not particularly interested in what topic you write about, only that you write well about it. Ideas can come from anywhere, so do not feel constricted to academic or literary examples. Friends, family, current events, extracurricular activities, even your favorite TV show are all fair game to write about for the SAT essay.

What should I write about?
The old adage applies here: “write about what you know”. You should always write about topics with which you are very familiar – topics which, if you are not expert in, you at least know more about than most people. When you write about what you know, your writing not only is more descriptive but also flows more freely because you are able to focus on simply telling a story rather than struggling to remember facts and events.

Can I write about personal experiences?
Absolutely. In fact, personal experiences are many times the best examples to use because they are the ones about which you have the most detailed knowledge.

What if I can’t remember a specific name or date?
No problem. Factual precision is not one of the criteria for grading essays, and graders are specifically told NOT to fact check. Still, if you are having trouble remembering a lot of basic facts, you may want to rethink using that specific example, since you probably don’t know enough about the topic to write a strong essay.

Can I just make something up?
There is nothing stopping you from just making up an example. The graders do not fact check, and, especially with personal experiences, there is really no way for them to know whether or not the event actually happened. However, unless you are a budding fiction writer, it is almost always preferable to use actual events and experiences, since these are the topics you know most about and can describe in the most detail.