ACT & SAT - Which one do I send to colleges? Should I retake?

Test Preparation
1

Hi everyone,

I recently got a 35 (36E/35M/33R/35S) on the ACT with an appalling 29 on writing. I took the old SAT and got a 2370 (800 R, 800 M, 770 W) single score with a 2380 superscore (780 W), I only took the old SAT twice. Now I’m confused if I should send both my ACT and SAT to colleges, since wouldn’t my 35 with a 29 W look kind of bad? Should I submit both my SAT & ACT or just my SAT and forget about the ACT? Should I retake the 35 just to get a better score on the writing? Thanks!

2

First of all, not all colleges look at the writing score at all.

For those that do, be careful about reading to much into the relative scales—it’s hard to find writing test percentiles, but as far as I can tell, a 29 is 97th percentile. Basically, the scoring system for the writing section is out of calibration with the rest of the test.