<p>Last year Cal Poly admissions representatives discussed the school’s test preference in terms of the difference in content between the ACT and SAT.</p>
<p>The ACT Science section tests scientific reasoning and, to a lesser extent, fund of scientific knowledge. The SAT has no comparable section. I believe that the Cal Poly engineering department (not sure about other departments) wants some sort of quantitative measure of a student’s scientific acumen.</p>
<p>The ACT Math section tests a slightly higher level of math than the SAT. A handful of precalculus questions show up on the ACT, whereas SAT math only covers geometry and intermediate algebra.</p>
<p>With other subject-specific tests available (Subject tests, AP tests), it seems as though stating a strong preference for reasoning test (ACT over SAT) is rather…arbitrary.</p>