Take the New SAT Essay

"To take or Not to take, that's a Question." Whether to take the new optional SAT Essay or not, it all depends on (1) Does the school you are applying require it? Find out the complete list at College Board Sat Essay Policy Board. If the school requires the Optional SAT Essay, then you must take it. (2) Are you a good writer? If the school does NOT require it, but you are a very good writer. Then taking the optional SAT Essay may help you for the overall scores.
There are a lot of information provided by the college board, but if you want to have a quick idea, visit the prep expert at Khan Academy for its Overview of the Optional SAT Essay.
If you are still not sure that you should prepare for SAT Essay, the SAT Essay Blues article gives a pretty reasonable assessment.
In order to find out whether the colleges/universities that you are interested in would require SAT/ACT Essays, instead of using the list provided by College Board which gives you a list of names for the colleges, and asking you to go to their own school site to find out. (which is good, but way too time consuming). Visit Here to get a quick glance, it provided 150 schools and listed the requirement for both SAT and ACT. Keep in mind, schools can change their requirement any time, if you are not a senior students, we believe it's better to prepare for the Essay writing, so you don't get caught off guard when the time for submission of your applications.