[junglegal007]

I have been working on a lab report regarding the Fischer Esterification of Salicylic acid to Methyl Salicylate using sulfuric acid and methanol. This may be a simple question that everyone knows, but I can't figure it out for some reason: Why does Methyl Salicylate go into the organic, ether layer as opposed to the aqueous layer?
 I know that when I added the ether, it separated the methyl salicylate into the organic layer with the ether, and the sulfuric acid and methanol went into the aqueous layer. Is this simply because the sulfuric acid and methanol have more hydrogen bonding interactions with the water than the methyl salicylate? Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

[movies]

Yeah, you've pretty much got it.  Esters are relatively non-polar and don't have any hydrogens available for hydrogen bonding.