I know colleges say they don't discriminate between ACT and SAT but...
will the Ivy Leagues and other east coast institutions look down upon your application for only submitting ACT scores and not SAT? I've notice under 20% of students on the east coast submit ACT scores and more colleges allow SAT super-scoring than ACT and some even use it for placement.
Really, now, why would colleges say they don't prefer one test over the other if they actually do? Could it all be some kind of extrasensory perception test designed to identify students who have the greatest psychic ability?
They say they don't prefer one test over the other because they really don't have a preference. It's as simple as that.
Superscoring can be a tip toward taking the SAT vs. the ACT (from the standpoint of the student, not the college's taking it), but in general it's a good idea to take both because some students do better on one over the other.
Yeah, like Erin's Dad mentioned, superscoring is why most people take the SAT instead. Also, the NE has typically been a region that was predominantly full of people that took the SAT prior to the rise of the ACT, thus the large percentage of people that take the former as opposed to the latter.
Midwestern schools do not prefer the ACT. However the ACT was developed in the midwest and most students take that as their normal stdized test (OH actually uses the ACT for in-state merit awards) so most students applying in the midwest use that test. Only some of the Cal schools (Cal Poly I think) specifically state a preference for the ACT.
