<p>I am going into junior year now and am searching for colleges. I have a 3.7 gpa at a very good high school, amazing extra-curricular and am now focusing more on the college entrance exams. I took two practice tests, one for sat and one for act and scored 1660 sat and 28 act. The 28 act score is clearly more impressive, but do ivy leagues frown on just sending in act scores? Should I take both tests or just stick to the act? Would a years time be enough to improve to get into an ivy?</p>
<p>From what I know, East coast and West coast colleges tend to really only need the SAT, while Midwest colleges look at the ACT. There is an exception to highly ranked institutions like the Ivy League, where you should send in both scores (in fact, i think most of them require the SAT). If in fact you are interested in attending a highly ranked institution, then you definitely need to bring BOTH your ACT and SAT scores up by quite a bit. Not that your scores are bad, but they just won’t suffice for Ivy League schools. You will want your SAT to be at least 2100+ and your ACT 32+. The latter seems more reachable for you at this point, but I think an years time might be just enough to get your score up. </p>
<p>I’ve heard College Board’s blue book is a great way to improve your score by 200-400 points, so definitely look at that if you already haven’t. </p>
<p>And assess what you are struggling with on both tests. If your CR score is low in the SAT, perhaps you might want to memorize a vocab list and read more SAT-caliber books. </p>
<p>Anything is possible, and I think you can certainly bump up both scores with some diligence and hard work.</p>
<p>ok, thanks!</p>
<p>This is kind of relevant to this topic…and at the same time, it’s not.
Since you are aiming for high institutions like the Ivy League, make sure you don’t overlook the SAT Subject Tests required by schools like Harvard, Princeton, etc.</p>
<p>Umm no, no schools that I know of prefer one test over the other. Take what test works better for you.</p>
<p>^can’t tell if that comment was towards me or not.
If it was, ur right. They take either the ACT or SAT…and on top of that, the sat subject tests</p>
<p>Quoted from "<a href="http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/requirements.html#scores">http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/application_process/requirements.html#scores</a>"
We require the SAT Reasoning Test or ACT Test with Writing, as well as two SAT Subject Tests.</p>
<p>I will say that almost all the schools that accept the ACT also will accept the SAT. However, there are schools that don’t take the ACT.</p>
<p>I was contesting the notion that the ivies prefer the SAT. Some top schools want SAT w/ subject tests OR ACT w/ writing, while others want SAT/ ACT w/writing ANDD subject tests. And I really am not aware of any schools that don’t take the ACT, but I’ll take your word for it haha</p>