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ACT vs SAT
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Anonymous
| If DC is satisfied with ACT score, is there any value in taking the Reasoning SAT? |
Anonymous
| Depends on what school he/she wants to apply to. Talk to your school's college counselor. |
Anonymous
Good advice. |
Anonymous
|
Most schools, even the top ones, accept the ACT or SAT now. It may depend on whether he thinks he will do better on one vs. another or what his score is relative to the ranges at the schools he wants to apply to. My DC did reasonably well on the ACT (33) but not so well on the SAT. Maybe he will do better on the SAT?
But the college counselor should definitely be anwswering this question as they have far more experience than someone who's been through the process once or twice. |
Anonymous
OP here. College counselor was non-commital. DC suggested he didn't want to be blamed for any adverse test results. On the other hand, the counselor expressed surprise when he found out DC was scheduled to take SAT. |
Anonymous
| If college counselor wasn't helpful OP -- then have DC make a list of colleges/universities he may wish to apply to and go through each one to see what their application requirements are. A lot of public schools in the VA,MD, DC area are pushing kids to take the ACT over the SAT. That might not work for every kid...find out what works best for yours. |
Anonymous
Who cares if there is an adverse test result. Then you don't send it in. I am the one whose DC took both and sent in only the ACT scores since the SATs were not as strong. DC also took both tests twice and most of the other kids in the grade also took one of both tests multiple times. It's pretty normal these days especially for selective schools. |
Anonymous
It is a little more complicated than that. If your child has taken the ACT and is happy with the results they could be done. If they need SAT II's (subject tests) then they have to take those and send those as well as the ACT. If they take the SAT I and bomb it they may be required to send it if the school they are applying to will not be using the score choice option. Many schools require students to send all of the scores from all of the sittings. Go to the college board site. The bottom line is that there is no real benefit to your child taking multiple tests unless s/he is going to do significantly better on the SAT. |
Anonymous
| Parent of rising middle schooler here, clearly not up to date on the standardized tests. When I applied to college, everyone I knew took the SATs, and the ACT was more popular in Midwestern states/colleges, but I don't think one was considered harder than the other. Why is one test preferable to the other? How does one know which test he will score better on? Thanks for bringing me up to date. |
Anonymous
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I have been repeatedly told by counselors and admissions reps that that all schools take both the SAT and ACT, though as some PPs noted, some schools/areas of the country may highlight one or the other (and some colleges do not require tests -- see www.fairtest.org). The style/approach of the tests is different. These days it seems that counselors suggest that you pick one or the other, but not both.
There is a Princeton Review book that discusses both tests and includes a combo practice test to help students choose what may be best for them (rather than taking a full practice ACT and a full practice SAT test to compare). http://www.princetonreview.com/sat-act.aspx This was helpful for my DC. And students with learning disabilities who may qualify for extra time should be aware that the procedures for requesting extra time and the way the extra time is administered differs between the tests. Go to the testing websites for more info on accommodations for students with learning disabilities. |
Anonymous
| DD took SAT once and ACT once. Counselor thought it silly to send both scores to colleges. DD scored higher on the verbal section for the SAT and higher for the math section on the ACT. Decided to send both ACT and SAT scores with college apps and she was accepted to an otherwise just-out-of-reach college. The admissions department there told us that they would take the high portions of each test and convert them to calculate an overall "super score." Doubt this would work for a big U and don't know about the ivys, but DD was very pleased. |
Anonymous
That's interesting. One thing I did read was that colleges had a tendency to break down the SAT by category and many will take the highest score from each category from a series of tests. On the other hand with the ACT, they're more interested in the composite score. |
Anonymous
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PP, what you've read is right for most schools. But there are lots of exceptions. Some really big schools (Penn State, for example) will not "super score" and will take only the highest score for one sitting (SAT or ACT).
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Anonymous
What we heard from schools (DD applied this year so it's pretty current) was that schools are just startng to superscore the ACT. Superscoring the SAT is pretty common, although as a pp noted not all schools do it. I have never heard of superscoring across the 2 tests - it would be a little odd since the subsections are different. One of the key differences between the 2 tests is that the ACT does not deduct for incorrect answers. This means there is less test taking "strategy" involved, which takes some of the pressure off, especially for kids who tend to overthink. For kids with extra time the ACT lets you choose how you use that (you get extra time for the overall test and can decide how long you want to spend on each subtest within the time constraints) while the SAT applies the extra time component to each section. |
Anonymous
| And the ACT has a science section which my DC didn't find particularly challenging (and they weren't taking any AP sciences at the time). So if your DC have an aptitude in science, I'd give the ACT a try. Your high schools should be giving students practice ACT and SATs (PSAT) as freshmen or sophomores. You may want to judge from these preliminary scores which test better suites the student. With all their other activities and school work, my DC were not fans of taking ACT and SAT for multiple sittings. |