So I’m going to be applying for colleges in 2018, and I just got an SAT score that I’m sort of happy with. But now the SAT just feels like a worse version of the ACT (in that it doesnt have a Science section). Is it possible that colleges will only consider the ACT in the near future due to the SAT being pretty much redundant and worse than the ACT? I talked to a guy in some test prep information booth and he seems to think so too
No, I don’t think so. That guy was trying to sell you test prep services, of course he wants to make you think you need to prep for something else.
SAT isn’t worse than ACT, just a lot less straightforward which today’s generation means anything that isn’t as straight as a line equals bad.
The answer is no. Most likely, the SAT will become the test most taken again by high school students within the next two years, but the reason is not the nature of the test, it is instead activities that can only be called good old market competition.
For years the SAT was the test most taken by high school students. During the 2,000’s, the ACT slowly chipped away at the SAT’s lead and by 2012 became the test taken by high school students more often than the SAT. Reasons for that included SAT’s disastrous decision to add a required writing section in 2005 which made the test too long. That drove many to simply take the ACT. On top of that you had the “no child left behind” laws where high schoools had to start providing statistical information to show its students were actually learning anything. The ACT, which hyped itself as a test that actually tests things learned in high school as compared to the old SAT which was more of a general intellignece test, agressively sold itself to states to be the test of choice to meeet those legalk requirements. Over a period of ten years, about 20 states including key ones like Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Ohio North Carolina, adopted the ACT as the test to be taken by high school students to show compliance with the laws. SAT managed to convince only three states, none with a huge population to do so. The effect, obviously, is that in the applicable ACT states, students for the most part, who were getting a free ACT test paid for by the state, stopped taking the SAT.
On top of that problem, the SAT was losing its subject test business, In the last 8 years, more than half the colleges that required subject tests stopped requiring them, including the UCs which had generated a huge amount of subject test business. The College Board saw the handwriting on the wall, in that if it continued as is, it would likely lose more and more business to ACT and face exactly what you imply, its going out of business. It changed management in late 2012 and developed a plan for regaining its star quality. The first part of the plan was to change the SAT test to something like the ACT so it could be touted as a test that actually tests things learned in high school. It then created sample tests and headed to the states starting in 2014 to sell what it had. It also did what it had to do: offer the states a price per test lower than the ACT was demanding in return for the state’s adopting the SAT as the test for students to take to meet no chiild left behind laws. The ACT was caught flat-footed. In a matter of a little over a year, the SAT has gained almost a dozen states that are gioing to be using the SAT as the required test to be given to high sxchool students. And three of those states are Colorado, Illinos and Michigan, which were among the ACT’s key states. In other words, the SAT is back in the driver’s seat and it has taken it only two years to do it.
This isn’t the reason for the ACT’s rise in marketshare. The real reason is that the ACT gave loss-leader sweetheart deals to states, which then offered the test for free at public schools–and, in fact, required it, as if it had something to do with high school curricula!. The CB caught on and has recently swiped a few of those states from the ACT.
The narrative that the shift in marketshare had anything to do with consumer choice is a myth, plain and simple.
(and for the record, I’m 100% opposed to mandatory SAT or ACT on any statewide basis. Scummy dealing, plain and simple.)
@marvin100 unless you know the percentage/numbers of mandatory tests vs. those signed up for by students you can’t prove that in any way. I DO know that the ACT is being taken more often on the coasts than it ever has before (none of which use it for state testing http://blog.prepscholar.com/which-states-require-the-act-full-list-and-advice) and likewise the SAT in flyover states. That seems to indicate consumer preference (and knowledge that it makes sense to try both).
Maybe no one remembers the old days when there were ACT only colleges and SAT only colleges. The ACT only colleges were in the Midwest, where the ACT company is based (Iowa). The College Board/SAT people published a list of SAT scores by state. Iowa had by far the higest scores. People were wondering what are Iowa high schools doing that is so wonderful! The reason for the high Iowa scores was that the only Iowa students taking the SAT were those heading to college outside the Midwest, mostly to the elite east coast schools.
Just wanted to add some data for my comments in post #6.
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/act-and-sat-participation-trends-2006-to-2013/862/
Using just one state as an example, Massachusetts, does NOT require the ACT. Yet ACT tests grew by 7K while SAT tests taken grew by 1K from 2006 to 2013. Consumer preference. For New York, a large state, ACT testing grew by 23K tests while SAT grew by 4K.
That’s tiny, microscopic potatoes compared to the growth produced by state contracts, though.
And it’s pretty clear that [the ACT is super, super shady these days](Widespread cheating detailed in a program owned by test giant ACT), far more so than the also-suspect College Board.
There will always be schools which require standardized tests, because there will always be high schools with ridiculous grade inflation.
I think a better question is, will the ACT and the SAT, both, be less regarded in the future? Hundreds of colleges and universities are standardized test optional, including some very good ones like Middlebury and Wesleyan. Others are test optional as long as you do send in something else like AP test scores.
Middlebury is test flexible, not optional.