As some posters have pointed out elsewhere, a couple of colleges’ websites (namely, Amherst, Hamilton and MIT) include information regarding admit rates at various levels of standardized test scores. I noticed that, for Amherst and Hamilton, the admit rate was noticeably higher for each category of ACT score than it was for the parallel SAT score. Is this an anomaly or a demonstrated preference? The MIT rates, however, were similar for each test.
No
I’d say it’s a demonstrated preference on the part of the applicant. Some kids prefer/do better on SAT vs. ACT and vice versa. Remember, these colleges evaluate holistically, so test scores are just one part of the package.
By my back of the envelope calculation, for its class of 2021, Hamilton admitted nearly 33% of ACT test takers and slightly more than 20% of SAT test takers. There were slightly more SAT takers than ACT takers. The SAT takers were divided between new and old SAT, so that may have played a role but that is a big difference, no?
I think you’re reading too much into it. Hamilton says of standardized tests:
https://www.hamilton.edu/admission/apply/requirements
Hamilton admitted the 1375 applicants that it thought would best fit its incoming class. Without seeing all the applications, I don’t think you (or anyone) can make any statistical inference from anything.
That makes sense. It would be interesting, however, to see the numbers over a few years to see if it is a trend or an aberration - you would think that choice of test would not correlate with the other factors Hamilton considers and would, therefore, over time not have an impact on admission.
Don’t forget that the Class of 2021 was the first with the New SAT and included a combination of Old test and New test submitters. Some students avoided the New test by going with ACT. In addition, students determined which test score to submit by consulting College Board’s 2016 concordance tables, which turned out to be inaccurate (new tables were released just a few weeks ago).
The CDS used to have a box for schools to indicate a preference if they had one. Some old CDSes are still online.
@evergreen5 - I thought that the changes to the SAT might have something to do with it. The concordance tables being askew would actually be a good explanation for the different rates. I wonder if this happened elsewhere (as I mentioned above,mit doesn’t look like it did at MIT). I remain curious to see the Hamilton and Amherst information for 2022.
@samsondale http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article/2018/04/03/college-admits-most-diverse-pool-ever-class-2022
The breakdown data won’t appear for a few more months, I think.
It looks like Hamilton admission stats were 702/2120 (33%) for ACT and 366/2041 (18%) for the new SAT. With 2000+ samples in each group, this is a very statistically significant difference… 10+ SDs, which is statistically impossible to happen randomly. In short, there is something very different about who chooses to submit the respective tests and/or how Hamilton admits from the respective tests.
Looking at the score distribution among applicants, it looks like 23% of new SAT submitters had relatively low scores below 1200, but only 7% ACT submitters were below the corresponding ACT score of 25. If I look at higher bands, 53% of applicants with a 1500-1600 SAT were accepted compared to 63% for the corresponding ACT band (34-36). That’s a little higher, but the much bigger difference appears to be that low scoring applicants to Hamilton are much more likely to submit SAT than ACT.
Perhaps this relates to location. Hamilton is in upstate NY. NYS has a 76% SAT participation rate, but only a 27% ACT participation rate. Local kids are more likely to submit SAT, and out of state kids are more likely to take ACT. Perhaps the lower score kids are more likely to be local kids who only took SAT, while the kids from out of state who are interested enough about Hamilton to apply tend to be better students, as do the NYS kids who take both SAT and ACT and submit best score.
I still think the 2016 concordance table tremendously influenced student choice of which score (SAT vs ACT) to send for both 2021 and 2022.
I agree ^. My daughter’s school strongly encouraged ACT since there were no shifts.
It used to be a regional thing…I know ACT were bigger in the midwest and SATs on the East Coast for example.
@data10- interesting observation on regional preferences and the greater # of lower scoring SAT applicants. While I still think that a 20% difference at the highest band is significant, it looks like the admit rate at the next highest band was comparable at ~35%. The mystery deepens.
111 schools superscore the SAT but not the ACT. A majority of those schools constitute the top 20 nationally-ranked schools. So while it doesn’t answer your question, you should know that top schools DO appear to hold different standards to the two tests. In regards to actual preference, it’d wholly be up to the admissions officer, right? It would be outrageous to simply prefer one test over the other without having serious legal/commercial implications. Just do your best and expect nothing.