<p>In my understanding, SAT is more of a routine test. </p>
<p>Study Vocab—> Get vocab right
Study 16 Grammar Skills—> Apply them
etc. </p>
<p>The ACT is more of an application test.
Graphs, Data, Common Knowledge—> Application</p>
<p>However, the SAT is more established than the ACT. My own family who lives in another country only knows about SAT rather than the ACT. I believe that the SAT is estbld internationally while the ACT is more estbld in the U.S.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to note that Ivy League applicants heavily favor the SAT over the ACT, even though all Ivies accept both. At Harvard, 98 percent of accepted students submitted SAT scores and only 25 percent submitted ACT results. At Princeton and Cornell, it’s the same story: 98 and 22 percent, and 99 and 30 percent respectively [source: NCES].</p>
<p>^the SAT percentages at Ivies are high, but not that high. I’m getting my numbers from the same source and I see 82% for the SAT at Cornell, for example (collegenavigator.gov). That’s for 2013. I can’t believe the number would have gone up (and certainly not that much) if you happen to have access to 2014 numbers. </p>
<p>Okay, somebody please explain this to me as this has been a bit irksome for me for a while.</p>
<p>Schools will typically accept SAT+2 subject tests or ACT+writing. First off, ACT is significantly easier to prepare for; though it may be an issue of personal preference, it is generally agreed that SAT takes much more specific and time-consuming preparation for sections such as the vocab.
Second, the subject tests alone take quite a bit of time to prepare for, especially if you’re shooting for that 800. Due to the fact that some of the materials in the subject tests do not necessarily represent the materials you learned in schools, it guarantees at least 10+ hours, if not more, of prep work per test.</p>
<p>So how can colleges turn a blind eye on the fact that THREE tests that require extensive preparation does not equal ONE test that requires significantly less prep? It would seem that if they were truly equal, anybody with any sense of time and efficiency would be taking the ACT. Not to mention that sending just the ACT would cause one to miss out on the chance of showing his or her aptitude on the subjects of his or her choice.</p>
<p>Clearly there is a bias, or all the SAT takers doing more work have been doing this all wrong. Of course, this whole thing can be mitigated by sending in both scores. </p>
<p>tl;dr: They’re not the same, so why think so?</p>
@LifeAsIKnowIt: I don’t believe this statement is true. There are a lot of schools out there that don’t require Subject tests at all, and there are a fair number of schools that require Subject tests regardless of whether the SAT or ACT scores are submitted.</p>
<p>I agree with you that the SAT + 2 Subject test requirement is very different from the ACT+Writing only requirement. For the schools that offer such a choice (Yale, Brown, UPenn, Pomona, Rice, Tufts, Vassar, BC, Williams, etc.), I sort of understand the reasoning behind the policy…but it’s based on flawed logic. An admissions officer from one of the aforementioned schools might defend the policy in the following way: “The Subject tests are achievement/fund of knowledge tests, whereas the SAT is a reasoning test. The ACT is a hybrid of the two.” Anyone who has spent some time looking at the ACT would not characterize it as an “achievement” test. For the most part, it’s a reasoning test featuring more straightforward language, more reading, and greater time pressure than the SAT. Admissions committees that give this option (SAT+2 Subject tests vs. ACT+Writing) are simply out of touch with the content of these tests. I bet that, if admissions officers were asked to take all of these tests, they would have a better handle on what material is being tested…and they would certainly revise the policy.</p>
<p>In my opinion, schools that “get” the test differences require: (1) either the SAT or ACT+Writing and<a href=“2”>/u</a> 2 or 3 Subject tests.</p>
<p>I can say, by experience, that the ACT is, in my opinion, easier to do well on. I took the SAT, got a 2160. Took the ACT (cold) in March and got a 35 (~2340 SAT equivalent). Some have said the science is confusing, but I’m sure a little practice goes a LONG way.</p>
<p>@Bartleby007 I wholeheartedly agree with you in the 1) SAT or ACT and 2) 2-3 subject tests policy. I was not aware that such system existed as most of the schools that I am looking at seems to require SAT+2 Subjects or ACT+writing; for someone with a higher ACT score than the equivalent SAT score while having excellent subject tests, this current system really puts him or her in the dilemma. Of course, as I said, sending all the scores is always an option as well.
@midnightdreary Perhaps avoiding regional/test favoritism? Both collegeboard and ACT are ultimately very large companies, and any specific preference of one over the other is “bad for the business,” so to say. Also, as the SAT demographic still remains mostly east/west coast while more Midwesterners take the ACT, any preference may also be taken as regional favoritism. Of course, nobody but the admissions office will know if they actually uphold their claims that they will look at both equally.</p>
<p>Is it easier to get a 36+36+36+36 for a total of 36 on the ACT or an 800+800+800 for a 2400 on the SAT? Or, since that’s subjective, which is more common?</p>
<p>The ACT rounds the average of the scores, for example, if you get a 36 36 35 35 on the ACT, this set of scores rounds to a 36…where as for the SAT you truly do have to get perfect on each section (800 800 800) to get a perfect score.</p>
<p>I try to read all of Gibby’s posts as he is very well informed and helpful, but I remain skeptical about the adcoms assertions about the lack of testing importance. I believe that is admissions rhetoric. Perfect grades and bad scores raise eyebrows and near perfect scores with very good but not great grades gets a closer look. I don’t believe 2400 is much better than 2250 or that 36 is much better than 34. </p>
<p>“Perfect grades and bad scores raise eyebrows and near perfect scores with very good but not great grades gets a closer look” Sure – especially with a place like Brenzel’s Yale where they can choose plenty who have both.</p>
<p>And even as strong as any institution might downplay scores’ importance, human bias can come into play – we can’t discount the very human desire to reward perceived perfection or higher achievement. Here’s an anecdote related to me by an Ivy admissions officer several years ago. At his school (one that has had single digit admit rate for many years), there was a movement afoot to categorize the students in bands based on test scores. Let’s say the ACT 35s and 36s and the SAT +2350 kids all in one band (i’m not gonna check the equivalences – this is just for illustration)… Then the next band for the next lower rung of scores and so forth.</p>
<p>(Readers already placed student essays in certain bands based on initial reads so this pre-sorting was not unheard of)</p>
<p>The idea was that if someone truly believed that a 2350 and a 2400 were academically equivalent, let’s blind out the actual score and evaluate them w/o regard to that score – since they were both in the same band.</p>
<p>Although discussed, it was not adopted. People STILL wanted to avoid missing out on rewarding the 2400 or the 2380 kid – even if philosophically, everyone was in agreement that the difference between a 2400 and a 2350 are negligible for college success predictability.</p>
<p>True story. Have admissions committee rooms advanced since then? Should they? I don’t know. </p>
<p>**** Please note that my anecdote above is for a very extreme situation and should not be seen as a pattern for colleges’ reliance on tests. I heartily believe for the very tip top schools, it’s a lesser factor (like Brenzel said).*****</p>
<p>I like the scattergram as it nicely highlights how more than half the class had an unweighted 4.0 GPA at their high school regardless of test scores. To me that implies that Harvard puts more weight (or slightly more weight, however you want to read the data) on a student’s unweighted GPA at their high school rather than test scores. </p>
<p>Noticing that Ivies get more SAT scores than ACT scores doesn’t mean they PREFER them. SATs are popular on the east coast and Ivies are all on the east coast and get the most applicants from there. IMO that explains the discrepancy best.</p>
<p>Exactly @OHMomof2. I think few people would argue that WUSTL isn’t almost as selective as the Ivies, and certainly one of a handful of exceedingly selective schools. They got virtually equal numbers of ACT and SAT submissions, SAT having 25 more out of almost 2,000 submitted among those that enrolled. That certainly shows that at that one super-selective school, at least, there is no preference for one test over the other.</p>
<p>Another piece of evidence that shows how regional this is: LSU had 91% of entering freshmen submit ACT scores, only 9% SAT. Tulane, just a few miles upriver from there, got only slightly more ACT submissions than SAT, 63/58. Tulane draws heavily from the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and West Coast (the first two SAT strongholds, CA seems more split), as well as the South (including and especially Texas) and Midwest, especially Illinois. These are areas where the ACT is dominant, except for Texas which appears to be about split, favoring the SAT somewhat more. I think that says a lot about regional slants. I’ll throw in one more. UIUC - 8:3 in favor of the ACT. Northwestern - 64:60 in favor of the SAT. Again, NU draws heavily from both coasts, especially the East.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what more proof you want, but Harvard as well could fill up their entire class with perfect test takers,”</p>
<p>If by “perfect test takers” (a somewhat ambiguous term), you mean folks, for instance, who score a 2400 on the SAT, no, they couldn’t. The number of 2400 SATs was about 500 in 2013. Harvard accepted roughly 2000 students this year.</p>