Hi all! I’m a junior who will be registering for standardized testing very soon. At the moment, I am preparing for the SAT but everything I have read about the ACT and practice questions appeal to me much more then the SAT. I plan on taking SAT (+writing) regardless but was wondering if the so called “silent bias” for the SAT could be overcome with a solid ACT score and SAT II’s? Is it wrong/right that I’m sceptical of such a bias for the SAT even existing among top colleges?
No such bias exists.
There’s no anti-ACT bias, since ACT scores are just converted to SAT equivalent scores for US News reporting purposes. In fact, many Ivy League-level schools that require 2 SAT Subject scores will accept the ACT with Writing in place of both the SAT and SAT Subject tests.
There is no bias.
Why not take both ACT and SAT in junior year? Also take any subject tests that you may need at the end of junior year.
Then you will have a full set of test scores to help you assess which schools are realistic to apply to, and have time in early senior year for a retry if desired.
There seems to be more SAT kids at top colleges because many are in the Northeast, where the SAT is much more traditional. However, there is no such bias. At colleges in the inter mountain west, the ACT is preferred, interestingly. A 1560 CR+M SAT is equivalent to a 35 on BYU conversion charts. In my opinion scoring a 35 on the ACT is much easier than getting 780 on CR and Math.
@Studious99 your statement that a 35 on an ACT is “much easier” than getting a 780 on the SAT and that western schools “prefer[]” the ACT is itself confirmation that there is a bias in the way the people view the SAT and the ACT. The fact that you take a statistically supported equivalence and dismiss it away is a contradiction. There is a bias, but it’s among the test-taking population; I doubt there is a bias in the college admission offices.
There were 8,582 students with 35-36 ACTs in the graduating class of 2014, compared to 6,638 students with 1560+ CR+M SATs in the graduating class of 2015. It’s less meaningful to compare percentiles, since many states require all students to take the ACTs, but it doesn’t seem that one is substantially easier than the other.
Thank You for all the input. I’ll probably ended up taking the ACT once or twice as well. Its emphasis on science and everything that differentiates it from the SAT appeals to me very very much. But I am from the Northeast and the concept of the ACT is less familiar to me :-S