<p>There is a well-known high school in my state that has 1 person with a 36, 3 with a 35, and 7 with a 34. Many students achieved this through multiple trials.
Last year they sent 1 student to Yale, 3 to MIT, and 1 to UPenn, along with several others to top univ.
Maybe it's just a good school, but I'm wondering if a high ACT score doesn't count as much as before. With all these schools superscoring and only requesting a top score, more students are encouraged to take the test again and again until they crack it. I recently took the ACT and got a 34, but now I think I might have to rely on the SAT instead...
What do you think?</p>
<p>huh? my daughter’s HS grad class had at least two 2400’s in one sitting and at least 2 act scores of 36…and tons of other 34’s etc…so what? happened to be a smart class…no idea why you think your 34 is no longer good…</p>
<p>Well, no. I don’t think so. This year is no where near as good as last year, but we still have so many high scorers.</p>
<p>Well, a 36 is a 2380-2400, so it’s more common than a 2400 statistically speaking. 35 is around a 2330, 34 is a 2260, etc, etc. Using percentile comparisons in a school of 1,000 people, around 70-80 will have a 30 and higher. So it’s not unreasonable to have like a handful of people with higer scores.</p>
<p>well, in a class of just 93, 11 people scored 34 or higher. That’s more than 10%.</p>
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<p>Well, yes, but the difference is trivial. Among 2009 graduating seniors, slightly over 1.480 million took the ACT. Of those 1.4980 million, exactly 638, or 0.04%, scored a perfect 36.</p>
<p>Of the 1.530 million who took the SAT, exactly 297, or 0.02%, scored 2400 in a single sitting.</p>
<p>So, yeah, you could say a 36 ACT is “more common” than a natural (single-sitting) 2400 on the SAT; more than twice as common, in fact. But I think at that level of rarity—the 99.96th percentile for the ACT v. the 99.98th percentile for the SAT—it’s just not going to matter.</p>
<p>Throw in superscoring, which many colleges do with the SAT but very few do with the ACT, and the number of 2400 SATs probably doubles or triples, very likely making superscored 2400 SATs more common than best single-sitting composite 36 ACTs. Though both are still pretty rare. I just don’t believe all the claims I hear about 36 ACTs and 2400 SATs. No doubt some are true, but some could be idle boasts.</p>
<p>Is it easier to get a 36 than a 2400?</p>
<p>2/100s of a percent easier o.O</p>
<p>ACT is miles easier than SATs depending on your expertise</p>
<p>That’s what I thought…
Also, if you take the sat multiple times, do you have to send in all your scores or just your best one?</p>
<p>yeah…act is significantly easier than sat…i know someone who had a 590 Critical Reading score…but got a 34 on the reading section…hmm? lol</p>
<p>I got a 32 ACT reading, and a 500 SAT critical reading.
29 composite > 1640</p>
<p>What kind of schools do you people attend? At my school everyone does terribly.</p>
<p>a very bad one</p>
<p>Obviously not a bad one if they sent that many kids to Ivies (out of a class that has less than 100 people) and not to mention the fact that 10% of the kids got a 34+. At my old school out of a class of 600+ the highest score was a 34 (for the graduating class of '10).</p>
<p>alihaq717, I attend a different school. The school I mentioned above is one of the best schools in my state.</p>
<p>The majority of schools do not superscore the ACT, only the SAT. The ACT is most definitely not “significantly easier” than the SAT. Since they are completely different types of tests, some do better on one than the other. I know of many people who scored much better on the SAT than the ACT and have the added benefit of superscoring,</p>
<p>They release the scores every year. They both follow a relatively normal, bell shaped distribution. People are not consistently scoring better on either test.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s the tests getting easier, but I honestly think it’s students getting smarter. We are in an age where our intellects are rising and our technological research is growing exponentially. So it is only natural that kids will become smarter. Your 34 is not worth less. You will get into any school with that score (but now it just depends on what else is on your app). People seem to think that colleges only look at test scores. And while yes, they do use test scores as an easy comparison of students, it is not the only method. They still do look at GPA, classes, grades, etc.</p>
<p>So in other words, don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>Maybe standarized test scores aren’t that important anymore.</p>