@brazos21, I’d have your son submit both tests, with one caveat: if he is applying to a school that says if you submit any SAT scores you must submit them all (including Subject Tests) and there are some subject tests that he took and didn’t do so well on, then I may have him submit the ACT and cherry pick the SAT Subject Tests you want to include.
Is there a practical/philosophical difference between the SAT and the ACT? People talk about preferring one test over the other, but is it because of style, types of questions, etc?
@bearcatfan - in our case, after our son took the PSAT last year and did well, we assumed he would do the SAT. We had him take a “fear free” SAT through our school where they go in on a Saturday and take it under normal testing conditions, but then it gets scored locally and you go in for a 30-min evaluation and discussion of the score. Let’s say he did not do well.
So we signed him up to do the fear-free ACT the following weekend. Much better results.
He was somewhere in the 70th %ile for the SAT and the 99th for the ACT. From those two experiences, we decided to have him focus his efforts on the ACT. It was clear that the ACT just suited him better.
Supposedly the new SAT (March 2016) tracks more closely to the ACT than previously. Both of my kids did much better on the ACT vs. SAT their freshman year, and then caught up on the SAT their soph year.
My kids both say they prefer the SAT, the nature of the time limits on the ACT throws them off.
@bearcatfan, my S took his first SAT Dec 3 and his first ACT Dec 10. He prepared heavily for the PSAT because he’s aiming for NMF, then decided to stick exclusively to SAT prep after October anyway. He did a single practice ACT exam the night before the ACT but otherwise all his prep was geared toward SAT. Even with all that, he said he liked the ACT better. The questions made more sense to him somehow, they seemed more straightforward to him. He liked the science section on the ACT. Although he took the essay for both and found the ACT essay much more difficult than the SAT one, I don’t remember exactly why but it was something about being able to use contextual evidence in the SAT. Now we will see what happens in a few weeks when he gets his scores back, but at the moment he thinks if he needs to retake a standardized test he’ll probably choose the ACT. Of course my experience is just a single data point, but it does seem that the exams are different enough that some students will have an affinity for one or the other.
@glido – I hear you (and remember you from the 2014 thread). My oldest had a good score but only in the Commended range. I fretted over this since it’s almost expected to be an NMSF at his school (132 NMSF in his class of 450). He still did well in the college admissions game, snagged multiple merit offers and could not be any happier than where he landed.
I suspect DD’s score is below even the Commended level and that is OK. She still did fairly well (at least in the non-CC world) and she took it without any prep and after a late night at a competition where she didn’t get home until nearly midnight. I am hoping that her SAT score will improve slightly over the PSAT given that she will have a good night’s rest before and the PSAT as practice. She will land somewhere that suits her well, I’m sure.
I think we are playing it by ear here, but leaning SAT only. S’18 took a practice ACT a year ago and just didn’t like the timing of the ACT (are sections shorter?).
The ACT gives less time in which to answer each question, making it something of a speed-reading test. Even the science section is really a reading test, with very few questions requiring any prior scientific knowledge. That means that 75% of the test is reading/English language based, and only 25% is math based. That worked well for my kids, but YMMV.
After initial feedback and research, what does everyone think about the possible cutoff projections? Do you think we will see them coincide with what Compass Prep (for example) is suggesting? Or maybe 1-2 points above or below last year’s cutoffs? Maybe stay the same? How about Commended?
@Kayak3 I am sticking with the Compass projections he has proven to be accurate in the past. I think Panda is an alarmist, even though he retracted his earlier prediction and Pre Scholar was so far off last year, I won’t waste my time looking at their site. What other site are people looking at?
I do believe that the scores will increase this year but highly populated states and high cut off states will only go up by a point. Now that the scores are more compressed we may see more nmsf than in the past to get to the same number of finalists and I believe that they will be looking a grades much more closely in some states.
I really would be surprised to see large jumps in the cut off score simply because there is so much compression. JMO.
D is in exams now through the rest of the week. Good luck to those kiddos also taking exams this week!
(132 NMSF in his class of 450)
How does that happen? Is there a concerted effort for the school to teach to the test? Is there a specific prep course the whole school winds up taking? Do share
It must be a very very selective high school. Another I’ve heard of is the Texas Academy of Mathematics & Science, incredibly competitive to gain entry and only the tippy top students get in; it also has a ratio of about one third NMSF (2015 had 66 NMSF out of a class of 200). I’m sure other top boarding schools like Choate have a very high percentage of NMSF. These schools might teach to the test, and I’m sure heavy test prep is expected or at least encouraged, but they are working with the cream of the crop students to begin with.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Academy_of_Mathematics_and_Science
No teaching to the test and no school provided prep. Most kids take private prep courses, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for the area in which we live. My DS was the exception in not taking a prep class or even really studying for any standardized exam.
It is a selective entry public school, although our school district generally does well overall in standardized tests. Last year the school district had 213 NMSF, spread across 21 high schools (all but one high school in the district had at least one NMSF).
It’s a pressure cooker environment, which is one reason why I try not to focus on scores, etc. too much with my DD. She will worry and fret over it, unlike my DS who just took it all in stride.
I finally asked S18 how he did on the PSAT, and he did very well. Not NMSF well, but if he performs as projected on the SAT it will be good enough for some merit money at plenty of schools. I think his upward trajectory will also help.
@2014novamom . . . Tommy J. High School? (Pretty amazing place).
Anyone else here watching the decisions roll in? It’s giving me anxiety and taking me right back to when I went through this with D15. I can’t believe this is going to be us in just a year. OY!
@suzy100 I’m still reeling from the release of PSAT scores and the yo-yo predictions for cut offs for NM I am so not ready to do this again with ds18!
222 or so seems the limit for SI. Oddly enough, the commended cutoff has been high, around 204, for the new PSAT.
My S18 got under 200, barely, which was good enough to be in the running for his top schools and to decide to retake the SAT (though with family issues, I am not sure if he can). Not worrying about the cutoff is a relief.
Sadly, he kicked butt in math, but being on the autism spectrum and not talking conversationally until age 10, his reading and writing are middling. He gets pretty good English grades, not honors of course, but not remedial either.
His PSAT score is just pushing him more towards computers.
I have to laugh (sorry) about competitive prep and public schools. Honestly, some folks at the Ivy I attended were all that about how they were in HS, and how great their HS was (how it wasn’t called a HS of course). Funny thing is, me from a public non-competitive you-live-there-you-go-there HS not even top 10% of my class was sitting in the cafeteria next to them (knowing that I had many classmates who were in the top 10% of my class, even the top 5 people in my HS class, who got into no Ivy they applied to).
@suzy100, I can’t remember - are you looking at merit schools or keeping other options open as well? I’m not sure what we’re doing yet as D18 is taking a bit of a mental break from all the college talk & just concentrating on her school work for now. D18 is a much better student (stats wise) than S15 was & she’ll have many more options than he did if she chooses to pursue them.