<p>I took the ACT in February, and here are my results:</p>
<p>Composite:30
English: 30
Math: 35
Reading: 27
Science: 28</p>
<p>I plan to take it again in April.</p>
<p>However, I’ve already registered for the March SAT, and I haven’t done much preparation for it. Should I still take it? I’m aiming for 2150+</p>
<p>Well, if you are already registered, as far as I know, you can’t get a refund, so moneywise it seems like you should take it. The only downside to taking the SAT I right now is that if you get a poor score and later on you want/need to take and submit SAT II’s, that poor score will show up on your record again. Do you think that that will happen? Did you prepare a lot for the ACT to get that score? If so, I would probably stay away from the SAT I with little prep–it doesn’t seem like you would score that high. A 30 is less than a 2150 SAT score, but people score worse and better and the same on the ACT as on the SAT, so it’s hard for me to say how you would do. If there was a difference, in my experience usually strong math/science kids did MUCH better on the ACT and strong humanities kids did slightly better on the SAT, but of course that is not a hard and fast rule.</p>
<p>My parents told me that money was not an issue.</p>
<p>I have two SAT IIs I need to submit, both 780+. </p>
<p>That’s the issue. If colleges see a poor SAT I, but okay ACTs, will that impact factors in any way?</p>
<p>Ehh. It’s hard to say. Non-cynical response is no, that shouldn’t hurt you, but cynical response…depends on how bad the SAT is!! A quick trip to an SAT/ACT conversion chart says that a 30 is about a 1980, so as long as your score wasn’t lower than that, it wouldn’t hurt you. You got a good score on the math section of the ACT…let’s assume that you would get a 780 M. However, you got a 27 on the reading section, which in my experience is easier than the SAT CR section. Let’s say, though, that you get a 620 on the CR (equivalent to 27). You will better your ACT with anything over a 600 WR. So, to me, I think that you should take the SAT–it seems like you have a good chance of bettering your score. Is that more helpful? </p>
<p>On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with just committing to raising your ACT score and submitting your really good SAT II scores. The only thing that you lose out on is the chance that you score way better on the SAT. </p>
<p>Not a definitive answer, I know, but there is no one perfect answer. Hopefully that gives you more info to make your decision, though.</p>
<p>I’d take the sat, I think it’s so much easier than the act, but that’s probably because I prepped more for it. There are so many myths going around my area that the act is an easy ticket into college and that’s far from the case. I think it just depends on your comfort level with each one, because a 30 isnt a 2150.</p>
<p>“A quick trip to an SAT/ACT conversion chart says that a 30 is about a 1980”</p>
<p>Where did you find that? Wikipedia says a 30 is roughly 2040-2090.</p>
<p>I have taken two practice SAT tests, both 1800-2100 (depending on essay). </p>
<p>Looking at College Board’s College Search, averages for ACT in top school is 28-34ish.</p>
<p>Tubaman, I get my SAT/ACT conversion from googling “SAT/ACT conversion”–it’s the first link. It seems to be from a high school guidance office–admittedly not totally official, but the scale looks legit to me. </p>
<p>Okay, I just clicked on the collegeboard’s conversion–it seems that a 30 converts to anything from a 1980 to a 2030. I guess the other scale sticks on the low end of things. It seems like Wikipedia’s scale is a little overly generous :(. It says that they based their scale off of the University of California’s conversions, and I searched UC’s website and found out that by their methods a 30 becomes a 2040 (Wikipedia seems to have taken this as the low end of the range and then they saw that UC makes a 31 = 2100, so they decided that the range was 2040-2090). A couple of other sources (College advice books) put a 30 at about a 2010. Soooo…apparently a 30 is anywhere from a 1980 to a 2090! From everthing that I can tell, though, I think Wikipedia’s method is a bit overly generous. UC would count a 30 as a 2040, which is already generous according to the other scales I consulted. I wouldn’t convert it higher than that. </p>
<p>The practice tests that you are doing seem to put you around this range, of course leaving the essays up in the air. For a top school (Ivy, etc.), I would say that a 31 is the 25th percentile range. 32 and 33 are pretty competitive, and 34+ is the prime range to shoot for, in my opinion–that correlates to 2250+. Everything over that is happy gravy.</p>