<p>@ college4many - Absolutely yes to not paying to decide which test is the best for a student. There are free complete practice tests available for download on the College Board and ACT websites. Start there, then commit to one or the other. There are exceptions (like those who do best on ACT, but are aiming for National Merit), but for most students one test is enough!</p>
<p>“My son got into four top-20 colleges (two early-writes) without ever taking the SAT. The ACT is now acceptable everywhere as a legitimate alternative.”</p>
<p>If you are trying to get into HYPS level schools, you are going to go to the trouble of figuring out which test you will do the best on and then prep to try to max out your score on that test (which may be the SAT instead of the ACT). If you get a 36 on the first try, of course you don’t have to deal with the SAT. Or about prepping. Or about taking a test more than once… </p>
<p>If you are aiming at less selective schools, if the ACT you take for free at HS comes back good enough to get in, there’s not much reason to ever mess with the SAT.</p>
<p>12 states now require the ACT for graduation:</p>
<p>Arkansas
Colorado
Illinois
Kentucky
Louisiana
Michigan
Montana
North Carolina
North Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Wyoming</p>
<p>This year’s new agreement with NC (see [North</a> Carolina Department of Public Instruction | ACT](<a href=“http://www.act.org/stateservices/northcarolina/]North”>http://www.act.org/stateservices/northcarolina/)) represents something of a breakthrough for ACT as it is the first coastal state (and, I believe, the first SAT-dominant state) to require the test. I believe the fact that the ACT can be explicitly mapped to state and national curriculum guidelines has been a major selling point.</p>
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<p>Absolutely. When the stakes are high, it’s great to have a choice. The SAT is also frequently superscored, which another reason to consider it, even if you are in an ACT-mandatory state.</p>
<p>There are several states that require their students to take the ACT. for students who do not want to take both tests, they are NOT going to take the SAT. That is a factor in the ACT’s growing “popularity.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, for the kids in IL, the PSAE no longer uses the ACT with writing, so some kids will still have to pay to take it again, or sit for the SAT.</p>
<p>I had not heard of the ACT until about five years ago, when we first started researching colleges. Here in North Carolina, everyone took the SAT. One reason our state’s SAT scores have tended to be on the low side is that in many NC high schools, almost everyone takes it, college bound or not. That tends to put us at a disadvantage against states where only college-bound students take it.</p>
<p>Now things are changing rapidly. Last year, NC funded testing for every junior to take the ACT as a measure of their academic progress. (Because that includes non-college bound juniors, our ACT scores may also be low when compared to states that don’t require the ACT.)</p>
<p>This year most students took the SAT as well because a lot of parents still didn’t know that the ACT is a college admissions test on par with the SAT. However, as parents and students become more aware, this will change. If students can take a test once for free, then they can take it again and be finished – assuming they do well enough that they think the SAT is unnecessary. College Board must be in fits about this.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s easier to get high scores on ACT like 35’s and 36’s? If so, soon schools will ask you to spell out your scores, e.g., 36 (35, 35, 36, 36), that doesn’t look good any more.</p>
<p>Not sure why anyone is surprised by the ACT overtaking the SAT. The organization behind the ACT has focused on convincing the states to make the test mandatory, and has found great benefits in students from SATlandia to give the ACT a shot. The ACT also tends to be less a target for the negative media and the FairTest profiteers. </p>
<p>The differences between the SAT and ACT have become more subtle as the ACT no longer has to pretend to be different. A cynic could point to the success of a copycat that does not invest much in RD, copies and adapts, and spends on direct marketing as the better mousetrap. But that is massively irrelevant to all of us. Our job is to find the test that delivers the best return on efforts in the college application process.</p>
<p>As far as wasting time --as our TX purported tutor alleges-- one needs to separate preparation from the actual testing. The reality is that there exists little official ACT material to prepare. Added to the fact that the PLAN test is sub-par, the young students find it easier to discover the early SAT, the PSAT, and the real SAT.</p>
<p>The ACT as a grad standard test is cheep compared to other tests kids take. That is why a lot of states have moved to taking that for graduation requirements.</p>
<p>My (fact-free theory) is that students who can ace HS geom have excellent spatial-temporal skills and thus, can do extremely well on the SAT (which requires that skill set). Students who are strong in Alg but struggle with Geom would do better on the ACT (or at least three parts of it, since the Science section is all about speed-reading and ACT’s ver of ‘reasoning’).</p>
<p>Comments?</p>
<p>Comments?</p>
<p>Most of the discussions about the SAT vs ACT differences focus on the Math sections. This is strange because the largest variable in the tests is the verbal component. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I agree about the geometry part, but a bit less about the algebra. IMHO, the ACT is less of a thinking and reasoning test and more of a plug and chuck test. It just happens that the latter is more in tune with the (abysmal) way math is thought in high school. I am a firm believer that no calculator should be allowed on such tests, almost as much as I am not sure one is needed on the SAT. </p>
<p>You could also add a few attributes that help the SAT student. An ability to solve puzzles translates better on the SAT since it tests logic and reasoning. And, again, those are hardly taught, at least well, in your typical school setting, and for an obvious reason.</p>
<p>Maybe its me. I asked my son take the ACT one week after the SAT. The only section that really is so different is the science section so I bought him a book with science practice tests. </p>
<p>After searching around here in cc to find out the best way for him to review, the consensus was to not read any of the paragraphs, just jump into deciphering the charts and graphs.</p>
<p>So for fun, since I am a science person, I did a practice science test myself and did just that. Out of all the questions, only 2 required I scan the paragraph to find some fact to help answer the question. I told him to do the same. </p>
<p>This means that from a testing standpoint, that in this section, the ACT is being “trickier”. It is presented as if knowing the background about the experiment will help you when in fact, it just takes up your time and the high scorers will ignore reading the paragraphs first.</p>
<p>The main reason I took the ACT is that I liked that it’s offered in early September. I was able to prep over summer and in the early school year when things are a bit easier, whereas the first SAT is in October, further removed from the summer and when things are busier. I think offering an earlier date would help the SAT.</p>
<p>Never seen the ACT but the impression I’m getting on here is that it requires less analytical ability. Schools are particularily deficient in this area, hence I’d prefer the SAT.</p>
<p>Some additional ACT - SAT differences:</p>
<p>-- The ACT is 50% quantitative vs. 33% for the SAT. Presumably this gives STEM-oriented students a little more leverage.</p>
<p>-- The ACT has no guessing penalty which simplifies test strategy. Students might feel free to give their intuition a little more play and certainly can feel free to “bubble-out” in the last minute of the test.</p>
<p>-- The ACT has two sections, English and Reading, in which girls on average score better than boys. The SAT has only one, Critical Reading. Girls still end up with a slightly lower composite average than boys (21.0 vs. 21.2) but this might be explained by the possibly depressive effect that results from 19% more girls than boys taking the test.</p>
<p>-- However, although a few students do distinctly better in one format over the other, test score correlations between them are in the .88-.90 range. In other words the outcomes on these tests are very similar, which explains why schools feel comfortable accepting both.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, for the kids in IL, the PSAE no longer uses the ACT with writing, so some kids will still have to pay to take it again, or sit for the SAT.”</p>
<p>Same in Colorado. Mostly matters for kids who are trying to get into the more selective schools (who are going to be taking the SAT at least once and then taking their preferred test more than once anyway).</p>
<p>But a good marketing gig for the ACT. Once the kids take the free/mandatory ACT test spring of junior year, they likely will be coming back to the ACT for their second or third try (with the writing if they need it).</p>
<p>The test dates also help the ACT. Kids can prep over the summer, take it in early September, have their likely best score in hand by early October. Helps a lot with early application dates.</p>
<p>Personally, I’ve never noticed any major differences between the two tests. My ACT and SAT scores were pretty comparable, and I couldn’t differentiate an SAT question from an ACT one (well, aside from Math problems with trig or anything in the Science section) if you put a gun to my head.</p>
<p>We are in SAT country but DD did a fair amount better on the ACT. She took both twice.</p>
<p>I don’t know, I’ve always had the impression that elite colleges find great SAT scores to be more impressive than ACT scores (and I live in ACT country). Would you guys rather have, say, a 2380 SAT or a 36 ACT?</p>