anhtimmy

ACT is academic = if you succeed in school, you will have no trouble with it.
SAT is reasoning = for those that like to reason. lol

ilurkphat

ACT measures what you learned in school, and doesn't really test anything that will indicate how well you'll do in college. SAT tests reasoning, and can -somewhat- measure how well you'll do in college.

sstewart

BARRONS IS HARDER??!!! Wow someone could have told me that when I bought the book. I have been getting compostites scores of 25s and higher but no where close to where I want to be and was worrying. Well atleast I know now. How is Barrons harder though it seems close to the ACT to me.

cjgone

Most studies agree that high-school GPA can predict college success better than any standardized test. If the ACT shows what you learned from going to school, i'm pretty sure that's a really good thing.

ogiedude7

This must be one of the most enjoyable threads i've ever read. I simply have to state my beliefs toward the matter at hand.

Well, first of all, we should all try our best to be unbiased. Statements like the "ACT is essier than the SAT" and " a 36 ACT doesn't equal a 2400 SAT" without any proof to back up such statments emmidiately shows how you guys "feel" and tells me that you aren't percieving things the way thigns are.

We must also look at this matter clearly. The ACT does not test the same skills as the SAT. But this goes both ways. The SAT also doesn't test some skills in the ACT.

Colleges "paint a picture" of you based on your GPA, rigor in highschool, standardized test scores (ACT & SAT), letters of recommendations, Outside activities, ect. They treat basically each of these considerations for admission as a "color". Get the right colors and shades to form the best "picture". Thats about it.

Now i'm not saying that your "picture" or "portrait" should be what you think colleges want you to be; you should be yourself.

So your SAT or ACT needs to work with the rest of your application.

cooldude987

Lol I just read this after almost a year. Anyway, at high caliber universities, a 36 ACT and 2400 SAT will be weighted relatively equally simply due to the fact that these universities realize that it is not the standardized test scores that are the most important part of students' applications. Every year, more and more emphasis is being put on EC's and grades of a student than standardized test scores. Colleges are now looking for something intuitive a student can bring to the table; for example new inventions, the highest number of fortune 500 jobs given to their university students, D1 athletics, so on and so forth.

It could be said that in the situation that two candidates with equal stats and one with a 36 ACT while the other with a 2400 SAT are competing for the same spot, the 2400 SAT might have the edge due to the differences in the SAT compared to the ACT. Realistically speaking, however, when does that situation even happen?

H3Proto

I'm pretty sure they'd take them both.

HSMCCP

A hardcore stoner in my grade got 2000 on the SAT but a 35 on the ACT. He didn't study for the ACT at all, but studied for a few months for the SAT. I know of various other similar situations. Nuff said.

LostMyMind

For what it's worth, my scores were, to my surprise, almost exactly the same comparatively.

I got a 32 ACT and a 2110 SAT (1420 M+CR). Concordance charts show that 32 ACT is roughly 2130 or within the range of 2100-2140. A 1420 CR+M score translated to a 32 ACT.

After taking the tests about 2 weeks apart, I thought the ACT was easier, but when I received the scores, they were more or less the same thing.

This may be due to the curving on both tests though (easy ACT for me probably means it was easier for everyone or if the SAT was harder than usual, which it definitely was because 1 omit on M was -40 points, then the curves would align scores).