<p>I don’t understand why there’s all this misinfo going around CC about how colleges “look down upon the ACT”. I mean, if they say you can chose to send ACT or SAT, then why would they look down upon the ACT? Clearly, one test is not easier than the other, and both have their strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>I don’t get it either. If colleges prefered SATs, they could certainly just accept JUST SAT scores. They allow ACT submission for a reason.</p>
<p>Because the SAT reflects your ability more. It is more of an aptitude test.</p>
<p>SAT reflects your ability more? I really, REALLY doubt it.</p>
<p>umm i’ve never heard that colleges dont like the ACT. They dont anyway.</p>
<p>I personally feel this is kinda a BS test. I dunno why, but it just doesn’t seem to be equivalent with SATs. Like I highly doubt that a college like Harvard/Stanford is going to accept only ACT scores w/o SATs and the suj tests. I feel that in the top schools SATs are more important.</p>
<p>^^ you’re wrong. well ur right that they’ll want subject tests, but besides that you’re just plain wrong. Honestly if they didnt like the fricken test then they wouldnt let it be an option. They have a conversion table so it really doesnt matter which test you take. So umm yeah the moral is: guardiandevil423 is wrong, but dont worry i’ll say something that is wrong and then I’ll be wrong too and you’ll have company.</p>
<p>Let’s see…Zebras can fly.</p>
<p>I’ve heard stories of kids getting into Yale and equivalent with just ACTs in areas where SAT is the norm.</p>
<p>I go into the MIT forum a lot, and I found this post about MIT accepting ACT.</p>
<p>Here is the link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=215538[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=215538</a></p>
<p>If the link doesn’t work, go to MIT forum in here and look for MIT ACT policy. </p>
<p>I think that the students on the coasts look down upon the ACT for some reason, but colleges consider both. For some odd reason, they believe that people in the midwest aren’t as intelligent to take the SAT so that’s why midwestern people have the ACT. </p>
<p>When I read that, it made me mad. Read the thread. Hopefully, you’ll know that ACT still means something when applying to colleges. :)</p>
<p>Ok, the people in the midwest aren’t dumb. You can’t say that. Minnesota has the highest ACT average in the nation. the “intelligence” of ppl in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin are on par with some states of the East Coast. That’s b/c it’s cold a lot and people have nothing to do but study… lol j/k. yeah. It just bothers me when people are ignorant and think midwesterners are bad at education. We’re not. Of course I’ll admit that MA and NJ states are smarter than some states in the midwest, but after a few states in the east coast, mn, iowa, and wisconsin are ranked right behind.</p>
<p>Nearly every college treats ACT and SAT equally although some require the ACT subject tests. It is not just a midwestern test anymore.</p>
<p>Oh dear, this comes up SO much. People just repeat what used to be true or they want to continue to do what has always been done. </p>
<p>Why – my guess is that people are sheep. If everyone used to take a particular test for certain schools or everyone in a particular area takes a particular test, then people think taking the colleges at their word that there is no preference anymore is somehow risky. We live in SAT country and I can’t tell you the number of people who thought it was so scary that my daughter didn’t take the SAT. But why rely on one test if you like the format of the other better and do better on it in practice?</p>
<p>People get accepted to Ivies and the like using the ACT. My daughter did and a number of others have reported similar experiences on CC.</p>
<p>The trend is to take either test. With the conversion of Princeton and Wake Forest, Harvey Mudd is the only name school I know of that still only wants the SAT.</p>
<p>There is no legal problem with a college requiring or preferring a particular test. So the only thing one can conclude from colleges who stop doing so is that they really do NOT have a preference. On a thread someone quoted from a former adcomm at Harvard who specifically said there is no preference.</p>
<p>The SAT and ACT predict how one does at college equally well BTW.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard about colleges preferring one test over the other, but I found the ACT to be much easier than the SAT. Perhaps colleges “weigh” the conversion to favor the SAT more. Of course, I know that this isn’t officially true - I’ve seen the conversion sheets too.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, colleges wiegh the scale in favor of the ACT. I don’t know why. For instance, if you look at a college with stats for both tests, you’ll see that the average ACT score is somewhat worse than the average SAT score.</p>
<p>“Most commercial test-preparation companies, such as Kaplan and The Princeton Review, believe that the ACT is a fundamentally better test than the SAT. The Princeton Review, in its Cracking the ACT book, favors the ACT because of its less ambiguous and more knowledge-based questions.”</p>
<p>Any truth to this? I found it from answers.com when Googling the conversion from ACT to SAT.</p>
<p>The part about PR is true since it does mention it in the preface.</p>
<p>THe ACT is easier to study for. It’s more “knowledge” based than “trick based”. Just look at the ACT math. Most of the questions are very straight forward (ie, find the slope of this equation). However, I think the reading and science part is harder to improve. For the verbal SAT, you can improve your score in just a few weeks by memorizing vocab. But for the reading ACT, you can’t really “memorize words” just b/c there aren’t that many vocab context questions.</p>
<p>From what people say, the difficulty in the SAT is the trickiness of the questions. The difficulty in the ACT is the time you are given to complete each section. Which ends up being the harder, if either, depends on the student.</p>
<p>LOL GreenDayFan, i applaud you :)</p>
<p>and thank you DianeR. i thought i was breaking some sort of unwritten rule by deciding to take the ACT over the SAT.</p>
<p>what if you took the SAT and just want to take the ACt to supplement your application, is that a good idea?</p>