<p>Yes
I took AP Stat last year, and my stat teacher, who earned his PhD from Stanford, keeps up with the trends
He stressed the importance of both of those phrases
AP/IB Psych students should be very familiar with them as well</p>
<p>all of you are liars</p>
<p>Maybe you should first figure out what grade you are in. </p>
<p>
[quote=anakinsolo, under subject Foreign Language on 2 May 2007]
</p>
<p>Hi</p>
<p>I'm currently an 8th grader doing course selection for next year and am wondering which language to take on for 4 years. Which one would look more impressive to colleges. </p>
<p>Arabic
Japanese
German
French
Spanish
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=339444%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=339444</a> </p>
<p>
[quote=anakinsolo, under subject Is this a competitive schedule on 22 August 2007]
senior..journalism is hard and i'm taking it b/c i get to be editor of the school newspaper
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=385131%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=385131</a> </p>
<p>Kindly explain in your own words how someone who was an eighth grader last year would be sure what the facts are about this issue. Or, if you are a senior now, please explain what sources you have for what colleges do with test scores from different brands of tests.</p>
<p>Tokenadult- Are you trying to say that more people are submitting the SAT scores, even though they are lower, because that is what they think admission officers want to see? (I admit I haven't read all your links.)</p>
<p>Or let me ask it another way: If your ACT test was higher than the SAT, would you submit that score? Somehow I think you're going to tell me you'd submit both, but what if the difference was significant?</p>
<p>Sorry, token. I just found another of your posts and I'm happy to see you believe either test could be used. So I'm sure your answer would be to submit the test score that is higher. Do you believe that, for some reason, the ACT is regarded as the easier test?</p>
<p>A little O.T. but since someone has brought up this topic of voluntary response polls:</p>
<p>It doesn't take a PhD from anywhere to know that "voluntary response data are worthless". This is not a revolutionary concept and should not be a revelation to anyone. It is a sad commentary on our culture that this statement even needs to be made. </p>
<p>It seems like every evening the local TV and radio stations have a voluntary 'call-in' poll about a question of the day. The only purpose these polls serve is for the broadcaster to demonstrate to advertisers that there actually are people who watch/listen to the show. A lot of websites have such polls too, especially political polls, usually to demonstrate hits and to get people to sign up for newletters etc. </p>
<p>Another popular and insiduous application of these unscientific polls is to use the questions to actually influence the person being polled (I think they are called 'push polls' in the parlance). For example they could "poll" senior citizens in a certain congressional district and ask questions like: </p>
<p>"Congressman X has proposed that all funding for Medicare be cut by 20%. Do you a) support it or b) oppose it."</p>
<p>Toledo, if you look at the UT study linked to in post 36, which uses the same analysis as I did in post 35 (only a lot more thoroughly) you'll see why the question of which test is regarded as "easier" is missing the point. While the tests are somewhat different in their content and format, they test basically the same skill set. And since over a million students take each test each year, the database of results for each is equally statistically significant. </p>
<p>Each test yields a bell curve of score reports, with the majority of test takers getting scores in the mid range, and decreasing volumes of scores at the high and low ends. A student who tests at the 99th percentile on one is demonstrating the same relative position in the range of scholastic abilities as a student who is at the 99th percentile in the other. </p>
<p>It isn't "easier" to score a 33 ACT than a 2200 SAT - each score represents a result which is better than 99% of over a million test taker's results. There's no reason to assume that the million+ ACT taking students are dumber than the million+ SAT taking students as an entire group (even ignoring the overlap between the two groups) so being in the top 1% of one group is the equivalent of being in the top 1% of the other. I have to assume the the adcoms at the nation's selective colleges are savvy enough to figure that out and act accordingly.</p>
<p>My personal answer, that is, how I will advise my son, is to submit all the test scores you have. (The reason to use score choice on the ACT official score reports is to save money, really, not to hide other scores.) That includes self-reporting of AP scores to the colleges that ask for those. </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=371690%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=371690</a> </p>
<p>Even with all test scores at least self-reported, colleges are going to look at other issues besides test scores. Applicants for admission are never just strictly ranked by test score and then admitted from the top of the list on down. "Roommate qualities" are also very important for applicants to residential colleges. </p>
<p>A lot of young people who do Talent Search testing at middle school age </p>
<p><a href="http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/talent_search.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/talent_search.htm</a> </p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=78732%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=78732</a> </p>
<p>have previous SAT and ACT test scores that won't even show up, by default, on an official score report. (That's because SAT scores from below ninth grade don't show up on the report, by default, and because ACT has always had score choice.) I will recommend to my son--it's possible he will disregard the recommendation, or receive a contrary recommendation--simply using the supplementary forms on his college applications to list ALL test scores he has, from whatever age. The colleges will know what to do with the scores. People overthink this an awful lot. The most selective colleges are all quite consistent in saying that they consider a student's highest scores--Harvard adds the word "only" to say </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The general policy all over the land is to interpret student scores in the manner most favorable to the student (which, as some observers have noted, will also be the manner most favorable to the college's Common Data Set statistics on the test scores of the enrolled class). </p>
<p>Today is the ED or EA application deadline at a lot of colleges, isn't it? Don't worry, be happy, and good luck.</p>
<p>Those who are saying the ACT is "easier" are innumerate (statistically illiterate). The concordance tables that exist (SAT X is equivalent to ACT Y) already account for any difference in difficulty. Based on thousands of people who take both tests, it has been determined that say an ACT 34 is equivalent to SAT 2280, or whatever. If the ACT were "easier" then the 34 would translate to a 2200 or 2150, etc. The tables already account for the supposed "easiness" of the ACT (which doesn't really exist in the first place). Now of course any given individual might do better on one test than the other (just as they might do better on one administration of the SAT than another - the chances of doing "better" on the ACT are no greater than they are of doing better by taking the SAT twice) and so perceive that whatever test they scored higher on was "easier" but this is an entirely false and egocentric perception.</p>
<p>I have one S in college now and one who is a senior in HS. Plus a few younger. We have talked with many admissions officers the last couple of years. All of them said it didn't matter which test, submit what you have taken and they will take the highest score of any of them, even "superscore" when you have taken a test multiple times. The test formats are different for the ACT and SAT, the majority of kids score similarly on both tests. Some students do score higher on one format than the other, so take them both and see how you do. On another note, high school grades, difficulty level of your classes and EC's do count as well.</p>
<p>First, in response to post #37 about taking a poll to see whether the SAT or the ACT is more frequently reported, it is not necessary to take a poll. The data is provided by each school on their common data set. Part C of the common data set asks each school to report what percent of the students submit the SAT and what percent of the students submit the ACT. While I have not examined the CDS of every school, it is clear, from those that I have looked at, that the SAT is supplied most often. However, the ACT is growing very rapidly. As an example, Cornell University reported in their 1999-2000 CDS that 99% of their class submitted the SAT and 1% submitted the ACT. By the 2006-07 CDS Cornell reported that 95% of the class submitted the SAT and 20% of the class submitted the ACT (clearly some students submitted both.) If you look at other schools you will see that although the numbers are different, the trend is the same. More students are using the ACT!</p>
<p>Secondly, in response to post #47 about over 1 million students taking the SAT and the ACT, which stated that you can compare scores by looking at the percentile rank from each test, I tend to agree with you. With such a large number of students taking each test (many of whom are the same students) comparing percentile ranks makes sense. However, this is not how most colleges convert SAT to ACT. As has been reported previously, most schools use the concordance table. This table was based on a study done in 1997 using 1995 data. </p>
<p>A lot has changed in the tests since 1995 (writing was introduced only last year) and in those who take the tests. As a result, the concordance conversions don't equate with the percentile conversions. For example:</p>
<p>ACT Score/ Percentile/ Concordance SAT Equivalent / Percentile
34 99 1530 99
32 99 1470 98
30 97 1340 93
28 93 1260 86
26 86 1180 76
24 76 1110 65
22 64 1030 51</p>
<p>A 26 ACT score converts to an 1180 SAT, but the percentiles are 86th vs 76th. Are they the same, or is the 26 ACT a better score? This discrepancy, I believe, is why there is so much confusion between these two tests. </p>
<p>To those who say submit both and let the schools pick which one is better, I ask how do the schools decide, and are they doing it correctly?</p>
<p>ACT4 - that's basically the conclusion of the UT study. The percentile method reaches a similar (but not exactly the same) conclusion as do the past concordances. For what it's worth, here's my personal conversion table based on the numbers CB & ACT have published on the class of '07, computed by the actual percentile of scores: </p>
<p>36=2400
35=2380
34=2320
33=2260
32=2200
31=2130
30=2070
29=2010
28=1950
27=1890
26=1830
25=1770</p>
<p>It does appear that the conventional concordances lowball the ACT's in the mid-upper 20's by about 60 points out of 2400. Interesting.</p>
<p>question about ACT:</p>
<p>i know it's curriculum based unlike sat which is aptitude based. so, for someone that may not have had all the science (or other material) on the ACT do you have to learn the science and/or the equations before the test? i guess my question is, even if you have never seen the material before, can u still get by? what is the science section like? is it just like a reading passage related to science and then you answer ?'s or is it random chem and physics questions that you should know? thanks!</p>
<p>ACT Science requires no science knowledge, it is graph reading.</p>
<p>just crack open a practice book...DSC is right.</p>
<p>I got 2080. I'm hoping for a 32+.</p>
<p>First, TokenAdult -- please know that 9th grade ACTs are not part of the student's permanent score record. We were unable to "officially" send our D's 9th grade ACT score to colleges. Fortunately, she scored just as well last spring as a junior.</p>
<p>I still think the ACT and SAT are subtly different and in the best possible scenario the applicant scores well in both. I think the op has done that. I say submit both. Repeated high achievement is a beautiful thing.</p>
<p>
[quote]
please know that 9th grade ACTs are not part of the student's permanent score record.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Where is there a statement from a college to this effect? (It may be that a college wants somewhat more recent scores from a student who applies as a high school senior, but if it does, which college says so?) What does ACT say about which tests it puts on a student's record of scores, from which the student can exercise ACT's usual score choice option?</p>
<p>I believe a student should take both if possible to see what fits their personal attributes best. Living in the home of the ACT, Iowa, we were more familiar with it. My son took it in 7th and 9th grades, just coded in the tag talent search he did it through and not his high school code, so it will not appear on his high school transcript, scored a 28 in 7th grade, a 33 in 9th grade. Took in early junior year, got a 34, late junior year, got a 36. I think taking it several times helped with test familiarity.</p>
<p>He took SAT I last May with no prep, as a 232 PSAT made NMSF a good possibility, and he knew he had some conflicts on fall testing dates. Got a 2290 with no prep, good enough for NM. Probably could have prepared and improved, but needed the Nov. SAT date (tomorrow) for SAT 11s.</p>
<p>He thinks the ACT would always be higher because he is a math and science kind of kid, and that is half of the ACT and only a third of the SAT. We pondered trying to retake SAT I but decided the SAT IIs and his ACT should be good enough. Maybe not wise on our part, but hoping the ACT carries at least a little weight.</p>
<p>I kind of hope some day to see a thread entitled "Is the SAT looked down upon?"</p>