<p>Does the ivy league (particularly HYP) prefer the SAT to the ACT? This is the subject of much debate among me and my family.</p>
<p>Some people believe that the SAT is slightly favored. I disagree: I think there is no preference. Whichever is the case, the general practice of trying both tests and then sending the better score (unless the two scores are very close) is the right option.</p>
<p>They all say either one is fine.</p>
<p>(^ Well, no one doubts that the schools accept both tests, which is all that phrasing implies to me.)</p>
<p>SAT is submitted to ivies by overwhelming majority of applicants. However, that mainly reflects that the overwhelming majority of applicants come from states, particularly in the east, where the SAT is the test most taken by high school students. They accept either without preference.</p>
<p>The percentage of applicants that submit ACT to ivies has actually been rising steadily in the last several years; in the early 2000s less than 10% usually submitted an ACT to an Ivy, now it is closer to 30% or more.</p>
<p>A point of interest is that three of the ivies, Yale, Penn and Brown, allow you to skip SAT subject tests if you submit the ACT as they take the ACT in lieu of both the SAT and SAT subject tests. </p>
<p>The last ivy that asserted the SAT was the test of choice was Princeton which for a long time would accept the ACT only if you could not easily take the SAT where you lived (it was a Princeton professor who actually created the SAT in the mid-1920s; his is a story in its own). Princeton dropped that requirement and went to accepting both tests with no preference for entry class of 2006. The rest of the ivies abandoned any preference years before.</p>
<p>yeah, if yale, penn, and brown uses the ACT in place of SAT + Subject Tests, they must have some respect for the ACT. Also, I agree with drusba in that many Ivy applicants are from the east which is SAT land, and want to add that California is also SAT-dominant and many Ivy students are from there rather than the more rural ACT states.</p>
<p>Zonis20: that more students come from SAT-dominated regions may simply indicate that students in these areas were more competitive than others. With the decreasing significance of the standardized test score in college admissions (and the corresponding increased attention to extracurriculars, athletics, and the transcript) it is VERY UNLIKELY that any college would prefer to see one test over another. These tests provide adcoms with a vague guide of future academic success. In reality, the 4-year record of academic commitment and development shown in the transcript reveals much more than a 4-hour exam ever could. </p>
<p>BOTTOM LINE: save your time and energy for your school work and extracurriculars.</p>