Hmmm, I wonder if the school will change the cut offs during the process if they do not attract the students they want/need.
Item 1 in this article is interesting in reference to the current argument and the need to address the percentiles and a miscalculation by the college board. https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/2017/05/05/recent-changes-that-have-altered-the-landscape-of-college-admissions/
@Cavitee And that article was written prior to the release of the higher, actual Class of 2017 percentiles in September.
Adding another school that published Class of 2021 Old and New SAT scores separately, Harvey Mudd: https://www.hmc.edu/admission/discover/
It’s interesting that the middle 50 range for New scores is narrower than for Old.
@evergreen5 Hm. Would you look at that…
Maybe the narrowing of the range is because, in the middle of the percentile chart, kids were getting higher scores than maybe expected and, at the higher end, it’s harder to get a perfect score.
My D took the SAT once and received a 1520 and everything I see is saying this is the equivalent of a 34 ACT.
At least 2 of my daughter’s friends scored 34 on the ACT and could not break 1490 on SAT. Her peers that took
both all view the ACT as the easier test.
Yeah. The test preference vary from student to student. In addition, one need to take both test (or practice test) multiple times to make the comparison meaningful. My D1 did a lot better in ACT. My D2 was the same until a sudden jump in her second SAT attempt.
@homerdog I think you’ve narrowed in on the issue…at S’s high school, there were many who received a perfect score on the old SAT from the class of 2016, none to date on the new one (and of course, too many perfect ACT’s to count). We stuck to the SAT based on the 10th grade PSAT scores, and got the scores @wisteria100 mentions, but wonder if we would have been better off with the ACT. Not that obtaining a perfect score is by any means necessary…just sharing information here for others to consider.
@mackinaw, I get that getting a perfect score on a test would alleviate the conversion worries, but over 20% of the Math 2 Subject test takers get an 800 (my kids included), so not sure that analysis is applicable in this situation.
@mackinaw Congrats to your son, but when would concordance tables ever apply to an SAT subject test? I guess you are suggesting that everyone should just get a perfect score on every test they take? Sure, no problem. 
I came across a few more pieces of info. First, according to the CB site, the development of a new concordance table for SAT-ACT, due out next summer, indeed is in conjunction with the ACT organization.
And second, some interesting data from Hamilton College:
What I find interesting is the comparison of New SAT applicants admitted (366/2041, 17%) vs ACT applicants admitted (702/2120, 33%), considering the fairly dramatic difference in percentile for the lower bound of the middle 50 ranges (even considering the new, higher class of 2017 actual SAT percentiles published in Sept). The site provides even more detail, with numbers of apps, acceptances and enrollment for a breakdown of the score ranges.
It seems the above numbers were for enrolled students and the inclusion there of “accepted” must have been a typo:
@evergreen5 You’re such a great sleuth!
So is the walk away, for Hamilton anyway, that the ACT is favored over the SAT?
@evergreen5, yes it appears there is a typo in Hamilton College’s “Class of 2021 Profile” as the “accepted / admitted” student profile conveyed to us at Accepted Students Day was an ACT avg. of 33.
The “attending” student profile conveyed to us at First Year Orientation was an avg. ACT of 32 as its likely that some students were also admitted to even reachier schools as typical - this conforms to the Attending Column in the “Standardized Testing Distribution of Scores”.
Of those that submitted the ACT and achieved a 34 or higher 63% were accepted (those above 34 were also 42% of the total accepted that submitted the ACT) and of those that submitted the SAT and achieved a 1500 or higher 76% were accepted (those above 1500 were also 36% of the total accepted that submitted the SAT) so it does’t seem to be statistically significant to me.
Georgia Tech recently released its profile of students admitted early action for this application cycle. I would assume that most of the kids who submitted an SAT score took the revised SAT.
SAT: 1390-1530
ACT: 32-35
Oh, that’s very interesting. Just one snap shot at just one school I know, but these figures support the notion that the initially disclosed concordance tables are a bit off (e.g., one would have to get a 1560 to concord to a 35…). Thanks so much for posting!
^and maybe off even more at the lower end; the table equates 32 and 1450-1480. 1390 is at least a 60 pt difference - seems huge to me.
It’ll be interesting to see what the new concordance looks like this summer. While it sounded like the College Board’s 2016 “equipercentile” concordance was off a bit from the beginning, in part because the percentiles on the new test were a little off, the difference may be exacerbated by an increase in difficulty of the SAT reading that began this fall.
First admissions data that I’m aware of for high school Class of 2018/college Class of 2022, Florida Welcome, UF Class of ‘22 - The Independent Florida Alligator
Same link includes their data for last year, similar:
I’ll continue to guess that the 2016 table 7 concordance of New SAT and ACT is at least one ACT point off, as the Class of 2017 percentiles would indicate, and perhaps two for some SAT scores.
Thanks so much for posting @evergreen5
Given the numbers I’m hearing here and there from students at the schools my children attend who took both the SAT and ACT, I am expecting two points…
@ThinkOn Here’s a single data point: my DD took the SAT twice (Nov and Dec) and got 1510 composite. Took the ACT in Feb with minimal prep and found out today she got a 35. I think the concordance tables put 1510 at 33…so two points.
@bucketDad Congrats to your DD on her 35!
Friend’s 11th grader got 1400 on the SAT, but received a 33 on the ACT, my S’s friend got a 1460 on the SAT, but a 34 on the ACT…
I totally realize that these are just random data points, and that others will have data going the opposite direction. Thus, will be interesting to see the new concordance tables in the summer. My twins are sitting on a 1570 SAT, so don’t think it will affect them, but interesting nonetheless.