<p>does it look good if you have both a 36 and a 2400</p>
<p>what if you have a 36 and a really high SAT as well
does it help
or does it not matter since they do say they take your highest score and your highest score only</p>
<p>It doesn't matter.</p>
<p>i think if you already have a perfect or near perfect score on one test...then trying to take the other one for whatever reason shows that you've got nothing better to do with your time...</p>
<p>so not only does it not matter, it reflects badly on you.</p>
<p>i mean, i would find it EXTREMELY impressive, but right after the initial 'wow' moment, i would be like, now WHY, WHY in the world would this person do that?</p>
<p>how do you personally feel about it?</p>
<p>what about someone with a perfect ACT who takes the SAT to confirm National Merit and gets a perfect score? does that still qualify as "WHY, WHY"?</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>lol bookworm, yeah that would be an exception! care to brainstorm any others?</p>
<p>but it's the same concept. if someone was good enough to be semifinalist from the PSAT, why not go ahead, study and do reasonably well on the SAT instead of trying the ACT? </p>
<p>I do realize that many people take both tests on a whim just to see how well they could do in comparison, but perfect scores almost always require some studying! :) so my humble opinion is just that it's not worth it.</p>
<p>"what about someone with a perfect ACT who takes the SAT to confirm National Merit and gets a perfect score? does that still qualify as "WHY, WHY"?"</p>
<p>Well, that's not what the OP asked...</p>
<p>I think a more interesting question is which looks better, a 36 or a 2400...</p>
<p>i think it would be pretty impressive to have both but i think a 2400 is more impressive, at least to me. First of all, there seems to be far fewer people who got a 2400 than a 36. Second, it seems like SAT tests more "intelligence" or a skewed type of intelligence. So that pretty much means Im stupid because i have a higher ACT =/</p>
<p>I wouldn't assume that a person with both a 2400 and a 36 had to study for too long to get it and therefore say "That person has no life." The two tests do have a ceiling, and if you're at competition-level math and english then the SAT and ACT are just a piece of cake. (I am not saying I am, because I am not at all.)</p>
<p>Because for me, i got a 2310 on the SAT and a month later i got a 36 (36 on everything except science which i got a 35 for) so I didn't know my SAT score before I signed up and paid for the ACT. I just signed up for both to see which one I would do better in.</p>
<p>For my SAT, most of my studying was done before PSATs where I studied for about a month, about 10 hours a week. (I got a 240 PSAT). then I studied a week before my actual SATs like for a total of 10 hours so that was about 50 hours in total of studying.</p>
<p>However, for ACTs I did not study at all because it was after APs and SATs and I was totally sick of studying for and taking standarized tests. So I just winged it but thought it was pretty easy and got a 36. It took me just the 4 hours in the testing center; I didn't even know how much time was alotted for each section before I took the actual test. This is pretty much what I did for SAT2s as well.</p>
<p>^^basically same scenario here...not everyone has to study 1000 hours to do well on standarized tests...people are better at different things. Play to your strengths people and don't hate.</p>
<p>yeah; 2400 much more impressive. although i really should not judge, i know absolutely nothing about the ACTs ;)</p>
<p>grade inflati0n your argument makes sense, the whole 'if you're smart enough to do stellar on SAT the same should result from ACTs' but in the end, it just still emphasizes that it proves nothing to have perfect scores in both since a great score in one correlates to a great score in the other and vice versa (for the most part).</p>
<p>i've wanted to go wing the ACT myself a few times, but then logic kicks in and i realize there's no point since i already have a decent SAT score. Or is there? Would you advise me to go take the ACT? Would it be a well spent 4 hours? Haha I doubt I have your skills to take the ACTs cold and get a 36. Congrats by the way! :)</p>
<p>oooh, one more thing. notice how almost everyone who gets a really high ACT score always says it was easy and they didn't even study much, but not a lot of people associate luck/ease for a high SAT score.</p>
<p>Only about .0000001% of ALL test takes have achieved that score. No it doesn't make sense to say that 36 and 2400 will look "better".</p>
<p>I'm at competition level math...and I have to say that to me, SAT Math is a joke. English is more challenging, but I'm sure if I studied (in a focused manner) for just a few days, I could ace that as well...as it is I did competitively enough on that anyways.</p>
<p>Also, 2400, just by sheer scale, looks better than a 36. Miss two SAT problems, your score is lowered. The same on the ACT still gets you...a 36.</p>
<p>Yeah, AMC/AIME/USAMO/IMO math totally blows away SAT math by comparison. But, then again, those tests are meant for the absolute best. The SAT math (and SAT II math) is meant for everybody.</p>
<p>Oh, and about 0.02% of people get 2400s :)</p>
<p>You can't blame them if they take the tests within 2-3 weeks so they can't see the score on the other.</p>
<p>Of course, we could debate about whether a high ACT or a high SAT score is better. But I'm sure we can all agree, which answers the OP's question, that it doesn't matter if you have BOTH a 36 and a 2400 because it will not impress an admissions officer:</p>
<p>"grade inflati0n your argument makes sense, the whole 'if you're smart enough to do stellar on SAT the same should result from ACTs' but in the end, it just still emphasizes that it proves nothing to have perfect scores in both since a great score in one correlates to a great score in the other and vice versa (for the most part)."</p>
<p>I disagree somewhat with the general consensus that the two scores are highly correlated and cannot personally believe that colleges can accept the ACT as equal to the SAT. I do not know a single person who scored better on the SAT but know of countless people who have scored ~32 without being able to break 2000 and some who have scored 35 while barely breaking 2000.</p>