Is it okay that if a school requires either ACT with writing or SAT with subject tests that I submit ACTs with an additional SAT1 score without having any subject tests?
In other words, if I like my SAT score enough but not my subject tests, it’s fine to submit the ACTs with writing and SAT1 right?
The following are the colleges that require subject tests with SAT but accept ACT in lieu of both the SAT and subject tests. Of those listed, Yale, Penn, Barnard, Rice, Tufts and Pomona are the only ones that have any anti-score choice rule and for the rest you can send any test scores you want to send. For Penn you must provide all scores, SAT, subject tests, and ACT. For Yale, Barnard, Rice and Pomona you need to provide provide subject tests if you provide SAT. Also, you need to consider whether what you propose makes any difference. Except for Swarthmore, the following list of colleges consider the SAT for admission only if you do submit subject tests, i.e., do what you propose and the SAT will likely be ignored. Swarthmore will consider both tests if you submit both ACT and SAT without subject tests.
Amherst
Barnard
Boston College
Brown
Columbia
Duke
Haverford
McGill
Pomona
Rice
Tufts
Penn
Vassar
Wellesley
Wesleyan (and writing in ACT not required)
Yale
Swathmore (has a unique testing requirement rule: you can provide (a) SAT and two subject tests, or alternatively (b) ACT, or alternatively © ACT and SAT)
Thanks for the reply! So basically, most colleges won’t really look at the SAT if I send in both the ACTs and SATS without subject test?
Subject tests are just for top schools. Most of those schools require you to take them. The SATI or ACT is judged the same. You can take either the SAT1 or ACT. They will see both scores from ACT and SATI. But if you want to take just one of them, then you can do so. You will need to take the subject tests for schools like MIT and more, but if the schools that you are applying don’t require, then don’t take them. Also you can send the ACT along with SATII for top schools. You need to look their policy…
As to “most colleges,” my answer above was for the colleges you were asking about, which require subject tests with SAT but accept ACT in lieu of both SAT and subject tests. Those include only the ones I listed above except I now have a correction to the list since Weslleyan has recently gone to being test optional and thus you can send to it whatever test scores you want to send or no test scores. There are also 11 colleges that require subject tests whether you submit SAT or ACT and thus you lack the option of not submitting subject tests to those.
Most colleges do not require subject tests. For almost all of those, if you submit both SAT and ACT, they will use for admission that test they believe has the higher score. A small number, including Rose Hulman and Georgia Tech actually superscore the combined ACT and SAT tests, i.e., use the higher math score from the two tests, combined with the higher of the SAT reading or ACT English score, and, in the case of Georgia Tech, combined with the higher of the SAT writing score or the ACT combined English/Writing score (Rose Hulman does not use the writing sections).