jimmidawg

I heard if you want to go to the east coast for college, you should take the ACT and if you want to go to a west coast college, you should take the SAT. Confirm or deny?

Skalyan

That is just a rumor; most schools accept both tests.

rachelm57

The schools' preference is false. However, I believe that this so-called rumor comes from the fact the the SAT is more popular (among students) on the coasts, whereas the ACT is in the Midwest.

anon4321

Most colleges will take either one. As Rachel said, the SAT is more common in some areas and the ACT is more common in others. I would advice you to take both and see which one you do better on.

cheerioswithmilk

I don't think schools have a preference. I believe that there are a handful of schools in Western California (tech schools I think?) that I've heard prefer the ACT but that doesn't represent the west coast as a whole.

div301

I remember hearing on CC that a few schools !!!specifically state!!! that they prefer the ACT, but they are few and far in between. In our case, let's just assume they don't exist.

Take the test you'll get a better score on. (some schools require SAT II's make sure to look into that)

Red book for ACT/Blue book for SAT (do the third/forth practice exam in each book) compare your results. i max out 1600 on SAT... lol I got a 28 on my ACT

If you look around the ACT/SAT forums there have been many questions asked on the differences between each test that you can look into.