If u have the endurance for the grind that is the ACT u will do better on it than the SAT, but if u don’t u will do worse on the ACT
Here are some things to consider:
- Those comparison tables you find online are those published in 2008 and created by a joint study of the ACT and College Board (SAT) based on test scores of a little more than 300,000 students who took the ACT anytime between Sep 2004 and June 2006 and who also took the then "new" SAT with the writing section between March 2005 and June 2006. Thus, the tables are based only on students who took both tests, eliminating any possible issue of skewing the ACT percentiles because they are taken by many students who do not intend to go to college and do not care about the test in states that require all high school students to take the ACT. Someone who takes both tests is going to be someone who is taking them with the intent of doing well for applying to college.
- The tables create and compare percentile ranges of both tests of that group that took both tests. Since the ACT has fewer possible scores, the match in percentiles has one ACT score being comparable to a range of SAT scores. Since only those who took both tests are used, the supposed issue of whether one test is easier than another is irrelevant. Regardless of whether one might think one test is easier than another, you are producing a comparison of percentiles that already factors in that possibility if it exists. In other words, if as some claim a lot more score 32 or higher on the ACT than 2140 or higher on the SAT, then the tables would reflect that and a 32 ACT would be matched to a lower SAT score. You should note that ACT and SAT did like studies and produced comparisons tables twice before the current one, in 1991 and 1998, which was before either had a writing section and when far fewer students took both tests. The comparable scores/percentile ranges for the combined math and reading score of the SAT to the composite for the ACT remained essentially unchanged from one study to the other. In other words, as time progressed and more and more took both tests, that group as a whole did not score higher or lower on either test.
- Colleges today generally accept ACT or SAT without preference and that has been true now for many years. Reed College states it has no preference, contrary to what someone above mentioned. I am aware of only one college of any rank that currently states a preference, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo. It is in a state where the SAT has been the dominate test taken by high school students and submitted to colleges for many decades. In 2006, Cal Poly switched from stating it had no preference for the the test submitted to statimg a preference for the ACT.
- Because college admission decisons are done behind closed doors, many believe a lot more horrible things go on than actually do. Also, many incorrectly believe that minor differences in test scores make huge differences in the admission decision and thus believe there must be endless conversations going on among admisisons personnel as to whether one score slightly lower than another makes the difference in whether the applicant is admitted. The test scores are important to put you in the group that will be admitted, but contrary to what many think, those making decisons do not sit around thinking or arguing about whether a 32 ACT is better or worse than a 2140 SAT. Many colleges do not even compare the two tests but are simply aware of the ranges on each test that have been admitted before and continue to use those ranges (or raise them for both tests as the pool becomes more competitive). Those who compare scores may use those 2008 concordance tables, but those are guidelines not rules and those which compare scores may actually use more recent data and data based on the college's own historical admisison ranges which may produce tables that differ somewhat from those concordance tables you find online (e,g,, UTexas creates its own comparison tables using its historical information of those admitted to the college). In fact, both the ACT and College Board suggest doing that if the college compares scores. Thus, if you believe you have comparable ACT and SAT scores based on the online concordance tables, you should consider sending both because the comparison scores used by the university to which you are applying may differ somewhat from those online concordance tables. There are also colleges that consider only certian sections of either test such as math and reading of of the SAT and math and English of the ACT. There are even colleges that supersciore the combined tests -- for example, to determine admisison, Rose Hulman uses your higher math sacore from the math SAT or ACT, combined with the higher of the English ACT score or SAT reading score and ignores all other scores (SAT writing and composite, ACT composite, science and reading, and ACT writing); Gtech is the same except it also uses either the SAT writing score or the ACT combined English/writing score when superscoring the combined tests.
- Though you cannot get inside the heads of those who actually make admission decisions, there is some empirical evidence publicly avaiable that shows colleges in fact believe that given ACT scores in the concordance tables are close to the SAT scores in the same table. Check higher ranked colleges middle 50% ranges and average test scores of its freshman class for both the SAT and ACT. If you have USNews premium version you can do that fairly easily but you can also do it with common data sets and information published by universities on their sites. What you will usually find is that the low end and high end of the 50% range ACT and SAT scores, and the average score equal or are very close to what you find in those concordance tables. One other fact to consider is that there are 26 colleges that actually require SAT subject tests. Of those, 16 accept the ACT in lieu of both the SAT and subject tests (including Yale, Penn, Brown, Columbia, and Duke); thus, at some point in time those colleges made the conscious decison that the ACT was just as good as having both SAT and subject tests (for Columbia that occurred only two years ago because before then it required subject tests even if you submitted ACT).
@drusba That was very thoughtful and informative post! Thanks so much for posting!
But can you explain the fact why Stanford’s 25/75 percentiles have much higher expectations for SAT:
25/75
SAT: (2070/2350)
ACT: (32/34)
So 2350= 34 ACT in the eyes of Stanford’s admission?
*You can’t add them together. That is mathematically incorrect. *
According to Stanford’s commom data set http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2014#admission the middle 50% range was 31-34 ACT and 2070-2350 SAT. If you compare the numbers to the concordance tables, see http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/pdf/reference.pdf, Stanford’s 25th percentile for ACT and SAT matches the concordance tables, while at the 75th percentile Stanford has an SAT that would match a 35 ACT in the concordance tables so it takes a somewhat lower ACT to reach the upper 25% of those admitted but the difference from the concordance tables is not as significant as you seem to suggest. Also, you can often get somewhat lower ACT scores matching a little higher SAT scores because a college superscores SAT tests and does not superscore ACTs.
How does one compare one’s ACT score to a college that doesn’t have ACT average scores then?
For example:
Virginia Tech. I have found mixed reports of what their average ACT score is. Some sites like collegedata don’t report it. On naviance, its supposedly a 27, but I don’t know if that only includes my school.
My ACT is a 30. If they don’t provide average ACT scores, do I compare it to their SAT scores? I believe their average SAT is around an 1800-1900. Is it correct to say that my ACT puts me above average?
Virgnia Tech is a school that primarily receives SAT scores. They have not stated on their website that they prefer one test or the other, like most other colleges. STILL, everyone I’ve spoken to around the northern virginia area claim SAT scores are more important than ACT. Why?
Go here on Virginia Tech’s site and review “By the Numbers”: http://www.admiss.vt.edu/apply/freshman-snapshot/ Not the “average” but instead the more important “middle 50% range.” Note for the SAT scores given just above the ACT scores, those are for math and reading and do not include the writing section.
a difference by sat terms in 34 and 35 is 60-70’points which seems kinda significant
its odd that the 75th percentile of darmouth stanford columbia are 2350s and 34s
if suggests a 34=2350 which doesnt seem fair at all. Does anyonr know the reason for this?
The 75th percentile cumulative score ARE NOT 2350s at those schools - you can’t just sum up the the individual 75th percentile component scores, that’s not how it works.
The reason for the inflated percentiles for the ACT is that many schools in the midwest require their students to take the ACT, and at a lot of these schools, most of these students are not college bound and thus flunk the ACT. This skews the ACT percentile distribution. On the other hand, SAT test takers are self selecting.
Also, the mentality of ACT as a last resort has something to do with it too.