<p>Although this might not be explicitly related to Harvard, I thought Id post it here given the amount of traffic this particular thread seems to get </p>
<p>ACT versus SAT: would universities as selective as Harvard hold it against you if you chose to submit only an ACT score? Is there an unspoken expectation to submit an SAT score, even if you took the ACT?</p>
<p>Ten years ago, the SAT would have been the top choice of all selective colleges. Today, however, it does not matter! Harvard is on record as saying they treat both equally. There is even an SAT and ACT concordance table that computes the scores either way: [Compare</a> ACT and SAT Scores | ACT](<a href=“http://www.act.org/solutions/college-career-readiness/compare-act-sat/]Compare”>http://www.act.org/solutions/college-career-readiness/compare-act-sat/)</p>
<p>BTW: Last year, more students took the ACT than the SAT. See: [More</a> students take ACT than SAT for first time - KMSP-TV](<a href=“FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul”>FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul)</p>
<p>Very informative. Thanks, gibby!</p>
<p>@gibby, but do they really give as much weight to the ACT? I know they say they do, but behind closed doors they can do whatever they want, regardless of what they’ve said. The same question has always bothered me as well, since I’ve always found the ACT much more simple than the SAT.</p>
<p>By gum, I believe you’re right! I believe they tell everybody that they consider the two tests equivalent simply so that they can admit the elect few who figure out the secret, hidden truth that Harvard really prefers the SAT.</p>
<p>Oh, wait, no I don’t.</p>
<p>Hahahahaha!</p>
<p>Okay? Sorry for asking a question I guess?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/CDS_2011-2012_Final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/CDS_2011-2012_Final.pdf</a></p>
<p>Seriously, if you look at the latest Harvard Common Data set #C9, most accepted students submitted the SAT or submitted both SAT and ACT, but some just submitted the ACT. Harvard treats them both equally.</p>
<p>My son only took the ACT and SAT subject exams, he never took the SAT and he was accepted just about everywhere.</p>
<p>For anyone who still doubts that H and others weigh SAT and ACT equally, apply this common sense:</p>
<p>what is the purpose of either? To give data to evaluators. File readers want anything they can have. Even if one was a better predictor of certain attributes over the other (which is debateable), colleges simply don’t care* that* much over 20 points on your doggone SAT.</p>
<p>They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to elicit great apps – and then they turn around and handicap a huge swath of them for what reason? These same applicants whom they know will be coveted by their competition. Yeah, that makes sense.</p>
<p>Correlation =/= causation. Traditionally more SAT-only students have been admitted. This is because there are more applicants/admitted students from the North East – where ACT is taken less.</p>
<p>There’s no way to know what really happens behind closed doors, and this is really your concern. </p>
<p>Like an earlier poster, D submitted very high ACT and SATII scores (in her case to Tufts, where the median SAT score is up there with and even higher than some top 15-20 colleges and which led her to believe the SAT might be valued more) and got in. Could have submitted slightly lower SAT score, but didn’t. Even asked the Tufts reps specific questions about both tests. Their forthrightness was thus, to paraphrase: “We’re not jerks about it, really. Either is fine. Submit whichever scores you’re most comfortable with.”</p>
<p>It was the TOTAL application that got her in. Not one test over another. Make your application sing. Much better use of time and energies.</p>
<p>“It was the TOTAL application that got her in.”</p>
<p>^^ I could not agree more, especially as applicants seem to be laser-focused on their SAT/ACT scores, whereas Admissions Directors are looking at other elements in the application package for clues to the person behind the test scores. Several quotes come to mind:</p>
<p>[‘The</a> Ideal High School Graduate’ - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/ideal-grad/]'The”>'The Ideal High School Graduate' - The New York Times)
"Mr. Fitzsimmons called successful applicants to Harvard “good all-arounders – academically, extracurricularly and personally,” and he stressed the importance of demonstrating humanity and three-dimensionality in one’s college application. “I want to know, what is it this person does beside chew gum and produce good grades or scores?”</p>
<p>[Guidance</a> Office: Answers From Harvard’s Dean, Part 1 - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/harvarddean-part1/]Guidance”>Guidance Office: Answers From Harvard's Dean, Part 1 - The New York Times)
"Many people believe “best” ought to be defined by standardized tests, grades, and class rank, and it is easy to understand why. Such a system, another Harvard dean of admissions, Bill Bender, wrote in 1960, “has great appeal because it has the merits of apparent simplicity, objectivity, relative administrative cheapness in time and money and worry, a clear logical basis and therefore easy applicability and defensibility.”</p>
<p>While we value objective criteria, we apply a more expansive view of excellence. Test scores and grades offer some indication of students’ academic promise and achievement. But we also scrutinize applications for extracurricular distinction and personal qualities.</p>
<p>Students’ intellectual imagination, strength of character, and their ability to exercise good judgment — these are critical factors in the admissions process, and they are revealed not by test scores but by students’ activities outside the classroom, the testimony of teachers and guidance counselors, and by alumni/ae and staff interview reports."</p>
<p>“Personal qualities and character provide the foundation upon which each admission rests. Harvard alumni/ae often report that the education they received from fellow classmates was a critically important component of their college experience. The education that takes place between roommates, in dining halls, classrooms, research groups, extracurricular activities, and in Harvard’s residential houses depends on selecting students who will reach out to others.”</p>
<p>gibby, you expanded beautifully upon my simple point. And the comments from the Harvard Dean elucidate as best as can be done those qualities that admissions people love, which are really hard to quantify. More between-the-lines, but consistently so, having to do with day-to-day interactions and choices. Mind you, it’s a harder challenge to convey these intangibles in an application (through effective filling out of the Common App questions, carefully chosen recommendations and honest essays) than it is to prep for a standardized test. But when it’s done right, then yes, the application “sings”.</p>
<p>I got into Harvard (and every other school I applied to, including many Ivy+ schools) by submitting only the ACT. I did take the SAT, but only for National Merit Finalist qualification so I never submitted. I got a 34 composite 12 writing score, and although it was not “perfect”, submitting only the ACT didn’t hurt me.</p>