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I kind of hope some day to see a thread entitled "Is the SAT looked down upon?"
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<p>A funny comment. Of course admission tests in general are already looked down upon, but most colleges see no reason to abandon them entirely.</p>
<p>The freshman ACT for a talent search just doesn't show up on the student's high school record for college reporting. My D's gc, however, put it on her transcripts. She re-took in spring of junior year -- like crazy mom's child -- and was happy with results. She's submitting those plus the SATs, which were comparable. </p>
<p>Crazy mom - 2290 is fantastic and you should make sure the psat score is also sent by the gc along with transcripts. Our kids have similar test profiles. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>I have friends who've gotten into UPenn, Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia with the ACT</p>
<p>you guys seem to be trying to make yourselves feel better.
it makes sense that colleges would prefer the SAT to the ACT</p>
<p>SAT- supposedly a reasoning test that is based loosely on an IQ test (aptitute test)
ACT- a test based on what you've learned thus far in high school ( knowledge test)</p>
<p>SAT is something that you can really learn all that well where as ACT is something you can really really prepare for</p>
<p>no difference in preference by colleges. although personally i think the SAT is a better test</p>
<p>"Around here, everyone takes the SAT. My son's school district paid for all juniors to take the ACT last year, so why not take it. (He also took the SAT)"</p>
<p>Oregonian mom, do you happen to live in beaverton by any chance, cos my school district (beaverton school district) pays for our ACT exam which is.</p>
<p>ps Sry i don't know how to do the quote thing</p>
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you guys seem to be trying to make yourselves feel better.
it makes sense that colleges would prefer the SAT to the ACT</p>
<p>SAT- supposedly a reasoning test that is based loosely on an IQ test (aptitute test)
ACT- a test based on what you've learned thus far in high school ( knowledge test)</p>
<p>SAT is something that you can really learn all that well where as ACT is something you can really really prepare for
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<p>Not any more, SAT gave up on that. And actually the ACT is harder to prep for, as it is easier to learn tricks than knowledge. The ACT is easier to do without prep, as it more imitates your curriculum, however, you have to learn more to get better(beyond basic test taking things). SAT you can learn the tricks and habits of.</p>
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[quote]
I kind of hope some day to see a thread entitled "Is the SAT looked down upon?"
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<p>A funny comment. Of course admission tests in general are already looked down upon, but most colleges see no reason to abandon them entirely.
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<p>Such a thread is not so unlikely. The SAT receives more of a bad rap for biasedness and than the ACT.</p>
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I have friends who've gotten into UPenn, Princeton, Harvard, and Columbia with the ACT
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<p>If it's good enough for those colleges, who isn't it good enough for?</p>
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If it's good enough for those colleges, who isn't it good enough for?
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<p>Tokenadult, that's very poor logic, and you know it. Just because kids who took the ACT got into HYPMS does -NOT- mean these colleges hold it in the same regards as they do the SAT, and I am sure you agree. How did you know those students' applications would not have been strengthened by an SAT score, or even that they were admitted to HYPMS on the basis of academics rather than on the bases of athletics, legacy, etc? I understand that you believe very strongly that the ACT and SAT are essentially equivalent in reputation for all universities. I also understand that you have been on these boards for quite some time, and perhaps that if you were a high school student (like me) new to these boards, some of your beliefs would be more harshly picked apart. But just because you have that strong opinion about ACT=SAT and have trumpeted it all over the boards does not mean that you can support your argument with such faulty reasoning as above ^^^^ I am sure you are intelligent enough to understand the problems with anecdotal evidence, especially such meager and thirdhand anecdotal evidence as the post in question has provided.</p>
<p>I remember coming across an older thread where students were discussing whether some of the Northeastern Ivies value the SAT over the ACT despite the official policy of 'Absolutely No Preference' for all of these colleges. You responded with "So are you saying that admissions deans/officers are straight-out lying?" That in itself is a sort of subtle faulty logic, but that's a different story.</p>
<p>I agree that practically all, if not all, US universities outright claim that they hold no bias against or for either the ACT or the SAT. But I do not believe this to be sufficient evidence to argue that none of the elites do somewhat prefer the SAT to the ACT for a number of reasons. I have gone through quite a few threads debating this issue, and I know for a fact that I am not in a minority when I say that the ACT and SAT may be looked upon differently by adcoms. I have read posts by people closely affiliated with the admissions process who doubt that colleges see <em>no</em> difference between the two. Tokenadult, what qualifies you to assert that admissions officers hold the two tests in equal regard besides extensive research, participation in a large number of meetings with college officers, visiting many campuses and uni websites, and so on?</p>
<p>My daughter, a college sophomore, was recently accepted to an early admissions program for veterinary school. Anybody who knows anything about the compararative difficulty of getting into professional programs knows that vet school is at the top of the list. D took both the SAT and the ACT and did very well on both. She was required to submit either her SAT or ACT scores as part of her application and she chose to use her ACT scores. If we had thought that there was ANY possibility that the admissions committee would discount her ACT scores versus her SAT scores, it's safe to say that we would NEVER have taken that chance. The bottom line is that there simply is no evidence to support the notion that the SAT is a "superior" test vis a vis the ACT and that admissions committees prefer the former to the latter. Yet I've seen an astonishing number of posts from CCers -- generally a very intelligent bunch -- who still cling to this misconception. Some kids do better on the SAT, some kids do better on the ACT, and most score about the same on both. Both tests accomplish the same thing: provide a standard with which adcoms can compare applicants from varied high school backgrounds. It's that simple. The best approach is simply to submit your best scores -- whether ACT or SAT -- to your colleges of choice.</p>
<p>WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE that there is any issue with submitting ACT scores anymore? Where? What informed person says there is any problem? Where is a source that someone can cite or link to that says anything other than what Harvard and Yale say, which is that they will accept either test? That's my informational question: if the most selective colleges don't care about which brand name of test scores you submit, who does? Why?</p>
<p>"I am sure you are intelligent enough to understand the problems with anecdotal evidence, especially such meager and thirdhand anecdotal evidence as the post in question has provided."</p>
<hr>
<p>"I have gone through quite a few threads debating this issue, and I know for a fact that I am not in a minority when I say that the ACT and SAT may be looked upon differently by adcoms. I have read posts by people closely affiliated with the admissions process who doubt that colleges see <em>no</em> difference between the two."</p>
<p>^amb3r, before you start questioning tokenadult's logic, you better take a hard look at your own! You criticize tokenadult for using "anecdotal evidence" (which I don't believe he or she did) and then you turn around and say that based upon your reading of certain posts it can be inferred that there is a difference in the way that adcoms view the ACT vis a vis the SAT. Um, isn't THAT anecdotal evidence? I'll side with tokenadult on this and ask you the same question that he/she has already posed: Where does it say on ANY elite college admissions website that the adcom prefers the SAT to the ACT? And a follow up question: If there is, in fact, a preference for the SAT over the ACT among adcoms, why not just SAY that -- what do adcoms possibly have to gain by harboring a secret preference for one standardized test over another?</p>
<p>Great post, gbesq. Much needed.</p>
<p>And, supposing for the sake of discussion that there might be a preference somewhere, how much is it? Is it really worthwhile for a student who has already scored at the 75th percentile level of the enrolled class of his target college on the ACT </p>
<p>College</a> Search - Harvard College: SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>
<p>College</a> Search - Massachusetts Institute of Technology: SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>
<p>College</a> Search - Princeton University: SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>
<p>College</a> Search - Duke University: SAT®, AP®, CLEP®</p>
<p>College</a> Search - Stanford University: SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>
<p>College</a> Search - University of Chicago: SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>
<p>College</a> Search - University of Pennsylvania: SAT®, AP®, CLEP® </p>
<p>to take an SAT I after that? (Of course it is necessary to take SAT Subject Tests--what most people call the SAT IIs--for any college that requires those as part of a complete admission file, but what is the DEMONSTRATED, QUANTIFIABLE benefit to a student of taking the SAT I if the student already has a strong score on the ACT?)</p>
<p>^I would add that in many cases the ACT is an acceptable substitute for the SAT I AND the SAT II subject tests at many schools (Yale, for example, follows this policy the last time I checked). Obviously, at some schools and for certain programs, the SAT II subject tests will be required regardless of whether the student takes the ACT or the SAT I.</p>
<p>The last two replies beat me to it, but here are my thoughts.
SAT, ACT, between those, no one really cares. They are very similar, I think it is hard to draw clear lines between them....
(Which is why I don't understand why the ACT can take place of SAT I and II's)
-Bring up my point.
Almost every college requires EITHER ACT or SAT I and II's (only exception I can think of is Rice Univ... I'm sure there are a few more, but not many)</p>
<p>So, I think the question is not whether colleges prefer the SAT I or ACT, because they are very similar. But whether colleges prefer SAT I and II, or ACT.
And as The SAT I and II, provde for a more well-rounded perspective on a student - aptitude, plus study of individual subjects - I would think that, while a college may not prefer the SATs, they would learn more about a student's abilities through the SAT I and IIs than through just ACT.</p>
<p>Indeed, to believe that adcoms secretly "prefer" SATs over ACTs one would have to assume not only that they are lying, but that they are also stupid. There is no significant difference between the tests. The UT study linked to above concluded that students' average disparity in scores when they take the ACT and the SAT is comparable to the difference in their scores when they take the SAT on two different sittings.</p>
<p>I can understand that in years past when the two tests were more clearly regional than they are now, a coastal university might have lacked familiarity with the ACT. But every selective university gets hundreds (or thousands) of applications with each test attached each year. I'm sure they're comfortable with either.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it does appear from the published concordances that ACT scores do get lowballed by about 60 points out of 2400 in the 25-32 range of scores, based on comparable percentile scoring. I don't know if that's bias or simply an adjustment based on slightly different test groups, or a variation that has crept in since the last study comparing the scoring was performed.</p>
<p>Stewy, the answer may simply be that because the ACT has four parts plus a separate writing score, colleges feels they get enough information compared to the SAT 3+2 format.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: Faced with that exact scenario (post #75) my daughter has passed on taking any more exams (other than SAT Subject tests as required by some schools)</p>
<p>Stewy,</p>
<p>The reason that some schools will accept the ACT in lieu of the SAT I and the SAT II subject tests is that the ACT is a subject/knowledge based examination and provides distinct subscores for certain subject areas that the SAT does not (e.g., science reasoning). That being said, many of the more competitive colleges will still often require the SAT II subject tests, particularly where it's important to assess a student's ability in a particular subject that has relevance to a specific program to which the student may be applying.</p>
<p>Would it be better to send a 27 ACT or a 1240 SAT or should I just send both. I know the SAT is "higher" on conversion charts...</p>