SAT and ACT are looked at equally by colleges,right?

Test Preparation
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<p>Ray-</p>

<p>The reason I believe that colleges will accept the ACT in lieu of the SAT 1 and SAT 2s is that the ACT includes a science portion whereas the SAT doesnt. Do I think this is a good reason? No, as I have said previously the science portion of the ACT doesnt assess knowledge of science and thus is a bad test (in my opinion). However, I am pritty sure that it why you don’t have to take the SAT 2s if you take the ACT. At the same time, my school GC who is good at getting kids into ivys strongly advises “ACT only” kids to take the SAT 2s as well bc colleges suggest it.</p>

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<p>First of all, ACT’s science section is not meant to test your science skills. It’s meant to test who well you interpret graphs and scientific/quantitative data. I don’t know if you’ve gone out and looked at the real world yet, but that’s a very important thing to check for. According to your logic, colleges think it’s good enough to replace two subject tests. Hooray.</p>

<p>Second of all, NONE OF THIS MATTERS. How many times do I have to repeat that all this conjecture is useless? No matters what the reason, what we do know is that colleges like Yale respect the ACT enough to allow it to substitute for three SAT tests.</p>

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<p>Ray-</p>

<p>I agree with you that reading graphs and interpreting data is an important life skill. My beef with the way the ACT tests it is tht it doesnt give you enough time to read about the experiment the graph/tables are talking about, so in the end the ACT is a poor demonstrator of science reasoning as well. (Btw…I got a 36 on ACT science so I’m not bitter about the time it gives for this test = D)</p>

<p>Now on to your point about my “logic” equating the ACT science portion to two SAT 2s. I really don’t see how you can dispute this. The two things that the ACT assesses that the SAT doesnt not are science reasoning and trig. Additionally, I dont think many people would say that the SAT CR and Math are “easier” than the corresponding ACT sections. </p>

<p>Lastly, regarding your college admittance data and the ACT, I would not be so eager to ride off those numbers as proof of “ACT-SAT equality” in the college realm. There, like in all other data sets, outside variables that make coming to definite conclusion difficult with the numbers you gave. For example, the ACT has the reputation of being the “official” test of the Midwest. Well, the midwest does not send as many kids to top 20 schools tha other regions. So, these schools, striving for geographic diversity, would be slightly more willing to admit students with lower ACT scores. Additionally, we do not have the racial breakdown for the admittances with the ACT. God knows that Native American, Hispanic, and African Americans all have a slightly (or notablely depending on the race) lower expectations and as a result can have lower ACT scores and still get the acceptance letter. However, the data you have presented is interesting and warrants further consideration.</p>

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<p>Ray-
Now you’re saying the SAT gets less respect? If you don’t accept any statistical data or “anecdotal” (directly from an adcom) evidence, how can you make that claim? </p>

<p>Your posts suggest that you’re now lashing out at anything SAT-related. I think it’s due to a bad experience you had. Many top schools mark SAT 2’s as an important part of a person’s application. You are just giving way too much credit to the ACT.</p>

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<p>There is no way the ACT gets MORE respect than the SAT.</p>

<p>That is rather laughable. </p>

<p>At best it might hope to be equal, but even that is a dubious assumption.</p>

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<p>cooljazz-</p>

<p>I do not think its fair to say that Ray has had any bad experience with the SAT/ACT. Unless he is liein about his scores, he did nothing short of exceptional on both exams. Idk…but I agree with you on everything else though.</p>

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<p>My god, it’s like I’m throwing logic at a brick wall here. Have you never heard of the term “by your logic”? By using the logic of the opponent to prove the opposite of what he is saying, you essentially destroy his argument. By countering stupid statistics with more, opposite statistics, I use their logic to prove the opposite of their arguments. This proves that the logic used is flawed, and both conclusions can be discounted as flawed as well. Get it?</p>

<p>Here’s the basic gist for all you kids out there:</p>

<ol>
<li>somebody pulls out a random statistic that helps his case in a convoluted way.</li>
<li>I pull out a counter statistic that hurt his case.</li>
<li>I show that you can manipulate statistics to support anything.</li>
<li>I implore people to stop abusing raw data because it’s so meaningless.</li>
<li>I pull out more examples to show the inane nature of selectively choosing anecdotes/cases to somehow get a conclusion, by countering an anecdote with another anecdote. </li>
<li>Somebody’s brain implodes in this chain of events.</li>
<li>???</li>
<li>RAY192 CLAIMS THAT ACT IS MORE RESPECTED!!!</li>
</ol>

<p>And I’m not giving it too much credit. I don’t care about standardized testing. Yale is the one giving the ACT too much credit.</p>

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<p>Okay, a final piece of statistics lesson for you kids:</p>

<p>Here’s the logic of proponents of the hypothesis that SAT > ACT:</p>

<ol>
<li>Colleges always say they treat the two equally.</li>
<li>But we have anecdotes!</li>
<li>Furthermore, we can show statistics where admitted students have this and that SAT score and this and that ACT score and we can show that SAT kids do better!</li>
<li>Therefore, colleges are lying.</li>
</ol>

<p>Now, here’s another argument, using the same logic:</p>

<ol>
<li>Colleges always say they give some preference to URMs.</li>
<li>But we can see that Asians do better than Blacks/Hispanics in admissions because more of them get in! </li>
<li>Therefore, colleges are lying.</li>
</ol>

<p>The lesson? Correlation =/= Causation. Unless you can prove causation, and that will always involve some sort of statistical analysis (which I doubt any of you can provide), you have no basis to claim that all the colleges are lying. That is, you have no evidence to reject the null hypothesis with.</p>

<p>Since you have no proof of anything, for god’s sake, stop abusing raw data.</p>

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<p>Ray-</p>

<p>I have two beefs with your argument above.</p>

<p>Firstly, the “meaningless” stories/statements we are telling come, in part, from IVY ADMISSION OFFICERS. However, I guess you would have to believe the person who is saying tht the dartmouth adcom said that they give preference to the SAT. But, if you believe that the adcom did say that, well then you would need to prove te adcom is either lyin or incompetant. </p>

<p>Secondly, using that URM example was kind of a faulty analogy. Firstly, colleges say that they prefer SOME URMs (Asians are the exception). Additionally, more Asians could b applying to these schools than other URMs. On top of this, Asians could be part of a more “education based culture” than other races(I would say smarter…but then I’d b tagged a racist). However, the bottom line is that your intial premise that “Colleges always say they give some preference to URMs” is not true. They say they give preference to SOME URMs.</p>

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<p>Are you telling me that to “prove” my point I have to disprove the anecdotes of some random guy on the internet which we have no way of verifying?</p>

<p>Well, why don’t we disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster while we’re at it. </p>

<p>But hey, there’s an easier way to do this: either this person, who might or might not exist, is lying, or 99% of colleges in this country are lying when they say, over and over again, that they view the 2 tests equally. Take your pick.</p>

<p>I wish they’d start teaching people what a null hypothesis is.</p>

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<p>Oy vey. </p>

<ol>
<li>Do you know who what URM stands for? Do Asians fit the definition of URM?</li>
<li>My whole point is that you can’t determine the impact of some raw statistic until you control for other variables. Your strange and irrelevant explanations about the Asians demonstrates this point.</li>
</ol>

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<p>I’m not really sure if the SAT is viewed a little bit higher than the ACT, but I do know here in CT and all of New England, people will be more amazed at a 2400 than a 36. Maybe because the schools here push for the SAT, I know in my school we had a mass registration sign up (all the juniors) had to take the SAT in May. While for the ACT, our school doesn’t care if you take it or not.</p>

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<p>simple answer, yes.</p>

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<p>i read in a college admissions book that if you live in a state where the SAT is most popular, and you only submit ACT scores to a college, then the admissions officers are gonna be wondering what happened with your SATs</p>

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<p>Ray192, your efforts are not in vain. I chuckled when I read this post. For the record, he’s absolutely right about the statistics – I’m an advanced statistics student in a Ph.D program. Without independent statistical analysis there’s no way to compare. Isolated cases don’t make a good case, because for every isolated case that supports a hypothesis there’s another that supports the null.</p>

<p>For the record, cooljazz has been here before and stated things that his uncle has said that contradicts the official policy of most top colleges – most notably, that 1) the SAT is preferred over the ACT [when most schools will tell you they have no preference] and 2) that Early Decision gives applicants better chances of admissions [when most schools will tell you that a student who got in ED would’ve gotten in RD, too].</p>

<p>I have no reason to believe cooljazz is lying about his uncle being an admissions officer at Dartmouth (I don’t believe everyone who says they have a relative on an Ivy League admissions board, though). However, consider this:</p>

<p>1) Why would the official admissions pages and official statements of the admissions boards say that there is no preference when there is one? They have no real reason to lie about the preferences, if they really did have one. They do, after all, want to attract the best and the brightest to their schools. If they thought the ACT was inferior, they could just state that. Many of these schools only take certain AP scores for credit, don’t accept CLEP tests for credit, and won’t take applicants with a GED. Even with formal agreements with College Board and/or ACT, for what reason would they state an official policy that is a fabrication?</p>

<p>Certain admissions officers at the school may have individual preferences, and that’s different.</p>

<p>2) For those of you who like pure demographic statistics anyway, I looked at the College Board’s website and located the middle 50% of scores of the two tests (forming the composite SAT score by adding the lowest and the highest – this isn’t a completely accurate way of doing this, of course, but you know) and then compared the percentile rankings of each test. In general, the percentile rankings are really close for each test:</p>

<p>Harvard and Yale
2080-2370 (96th to 99th)
31 to 35 (98th to 99th)</p>

<p>Princeton
2100 to 2370 (97th to 99th)
30 to 34 (96th to 99th)</p>

<p>Brown
1980 to 2310 (92nd to 99th)
28 to 33 (92nd to 99th)</p>

<p>Dartmouth
2010 to 2320 (94th to 99th)
29 to 34 (94th to 99th)</p>

<p>Cornell
1300 to 1500 (90th to 99th)
29 to 33 (94th to 99th)</p>

<p>Penn
2000 to 2280 (93rd to 99th)
30 to 33 (96th to 99th)</p>

<p>Columbia
2050 to 2320 (95th to 99th)
29 to 34 (94th to 99th)</p>

<p>3) Even if schools slightly preferred one test over the other, if you do much better on the ACT than on the SAT, what reason would you have for submitting your SAT scores anyway? Particularly if your percentile rank difference was 5+ (like your SAT score is in the 75th percentile, but your ACT score is in the 80th), because you’ve probably outweighed any preference that there might have been.</p>

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<p>Juillet, as amazing as your statistics background is, you are being too naive about the system. </p>

<p>“Why would the official admissions pages and official statements of the admissions boards say that there is no preference when there is one?”</p>

<p>Because of complicated and lucrative deals worked out by the colleges and the testing companies. Both groups exist to make money and expand, after all. It’s foolish to think that they don’t collaborate to accomplish their goals. So although colleges claim that the tests are both acceptable, the SAT is preferred. Again, seeing as both tests are so different, how can they ever being treated equally? Colleges know the differences and make their own judgments. </p>

<p>And as for “For the record, cooljazz has been here before and stated things that…Early Decision gives applicants better chances of admissions [when most schools will tell you that a student who got in ED would’ve gotten in RD, too].”</p>

<p>That is a shameless lie. Check my post history or find the thread. It is an attempt to discredit me. Again, both Juillet and Ray should just stop lying, because it’s not working.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>Let me guess… you also believe that the CIA collaborated with Castro to assasinate Kennedy? Conspiracy theories are sooooo last century.</p></li>
<li><p>So what’s your evidence that the SAT is preferred? If your best is an anecdote, just give up.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>That’s a rather strange sentiment… what’s that old quote, ah yes, “All men are born equal.” The tests are different, but they’re equally flawed, so why take one over the other? No test fully captures true intelligence… unless you’d want to argue otherwise.</p>

<p>Guess how many tests does MENSA accept for application purposes? Hint: it’s greater than two. </p>

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<p>Care to point out any lies in my post? Because if you can’t… you’re the shameless liar.</p>

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<p>I remember reading a good article that showed statistically significant data proving that colleges favor AP over IB. not saying that it’s the same thing with the SAT and ACT, just saying that adcoms can be biased.</p>

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<p>I kind of think SAT vs. ACT for many students and colleges is simply a question of geographic area. The SAT is generally emphasized more than the ACT on the two coasts, while the ACT is given more of an emphasis in the Midwest. At least, that is my understanding. </p>

<p>The only bias I could assume colleges would have would be, as I saw in a previous post, that if you’re from a geographic area that generally emphasizes the SAT, colleges might wonder a little if you use the ACT. But honestly, I really don’t think they’d care that much. Especially if they don’t actually have your potentially bad SAT scores in front of them. Perhaps, colleges from the east coast might rate the SAT higher in their minds than the ACT, while colleges from the midwest may view them the same?</p>

<p>Honestly, there’s no real way of knowing. I don’t discount your uncle’s words, cooljazz, but perhaps he is speaking on behalf of his experience at Dartmouth and that doesn’t necessarily apply to all top colleges in the country.</p>

<p>I’d just like to point out that many of these posts smell of antagonistic statistical debaters whose intentions are more to attack one another than answer the question. I’m not looking for more of a fight. I’m just pointing that out.</p>

<p>To clear up any biases I might have in my input, I never took the ACT and so I really can’t comment on its difficulty in relation to the SAT. I got a 2400 on my SATs.</p>

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<p>Ray192 and Juillet just pwned you in the face, cooljazz. JMHO. . .</p>

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<p>Haha it’s funny for you to say that kiterunnner, but the fact is you’ve a student who favors the ACT. You got a 32, retook it, and don’t plan on facing the SAT. If you feel like you’re in the position to judge things, you should probably tell everyone that you’re biased. </p>

<p>Ray, I said that Juillet made the lie that I said something about ED and RD when she tried to attack me.</p>

<p>And what I said isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s actually unsurprising. I expected you to be smarter, with your statistics background and everything.</p>

<p>And MENSA (which is a dumb organization to begin with) doesn’t create a scale for each of their tests point-by-point and use them to judge college admissions. </p>

<p>Your argument is just silly. You can attack my anecdote all you want, but I’m just trying to get out the truth for people like alexoftennis. I don’t expect the ACT-takers and people who did poorly on the SAT to listen.</p>