Spent a weekend in Madison two years ago and loved it! If I could move there, I would.

Attended Madison and loved it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SATs are basically regional tests for the East Coast and California. ACTs are regional tests for the rest of the country. Most Wisconsin students haven't taken the SAT, so SAT comparisons are meaningless. Besides, Ms. MD, you are a putz.

Are you stuck in the 80’s? Lots of East Coast kids take the ACT.

Education Week, May 2017 https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/05/24/in-race-for-test-takers-act-outscores-sat--for.html

In Race for Test-Takers, ACT Outscores SAT—for Now
But both organizations are making a strong play for statewide test markets

By Caralee J. Adams
May 24, 2017 | Corrected: May 30, 2017


The University of Pennsylvania reached a milestone of sorts with its fall entering class: For the first time, more students had taken the ACT than the SAT.

The changeover at the Ivy League university in Philadelphia reflects a more general shift taking place in the college-entrance-exam marketplace.

"The momentum has clearly been on the ACT side," said Eric Furda, Penn's admissions dean.

In fact, the ACT has been the most popular test used to predict college performance since 2012. Last year, more than 2.09 million (or 64 percent of graduates from the high school class of 2016) took the ACT compared with the SAT's 1.64 million. Some believe the ACT will remain dominant, since more states give it for free during the school day, and the jittery students who abandoned the SAT during its 2016 redesign will be hard to win back.

Others see the market recalibrating and both testing organizations on solid footing, since the ACT and SAT tests can be used as accountability measures under the Every Student Succeeds Act, and are preferred in some states over the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced assessments.

...

"The SAT is bouncing back nicely," said Adam Ingersoll, a co-founder and principal of Compass Education Group, a California-based test-prep company whose students opted for the ACT 8 to 1 over the SAT last year. He believes the ACT will still draw more students this year but more likely at a ratio of 2 to 1.

...

In Wisconsin, the state's official high school test is now the ACT, and students are more motivated because the results can go on their college applications, said Steve Schneider, a counselor at South High School in Sheboygan, Wis.
"In the past, we've always tried to encourage kids to do well on the state test, but the scores didn't mean anything," he added.

Still a big difference in numbers taking test in different states:
https://magoosh.com/hs/act/2016/average-act-score-by-state/

But don't let facts get in the way of snark.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SATs are basically regional tests for the East Coast and California. ACTs are regional tests for the rest of the country. Most Wisconsin students haven't taken the SAT, so SAT comparisons are meaningless. Besides, Ms. MD, you are a putz.

Are you stuck in the 80’s? Lots of East Coast kids take the ACT.

Lol...exactly. ACT got so popular that the SAT changed its format to more closely resemble it.

ACT convinced many states that it was well-aligned to Common Core, and states starting adopting it as its high stakes high school school test to show mastery of CC standards AND help students applying to college. It is a two-fer, reducing costs and allowing students to take just one exam instead of 2.

SAT changed to get back some of that market share, and also show it was a good substitute for a high school PARCC, SOL or the Smarter Balanced test.