SAT verses ACT and more

@Center Is your kiddo looking to play a sport in college? I’m wondering if athletic prospects might need to test sooner (such as by fall of junior year) so that coaches have a sense of whether the athlete will pass academic muster for their schools?

@AppleNotFar That can be a bit of a concern depending on the school. Ivy and NESCAC schools will require a minimum SAT for admissibility, and they don’t want to screw around with someone who doesn’t have the academic chops. They will work off PSAT scores initially. For NESCAC, the timeline isn’t THAT important, as they cant take a commitment until July 1 following the junior year of high school. For Ivies in sports that engage in early recruiting, you are often committing to the admission process, which means you still might not get in if all the academics don’t line up. No, athletes don’t need to take SAT’s as a sophomore or even fall of junior year to be competitive in the recruiting market, but yes, a student looking at Ivies and NESCAC schools can disadvantage themselves if they wait until very late in their junior year to take the SAT. Recruiting is a meat market, and if you don’t have all your stuff lined up and ready to go they will move on to the next kid who does.

I have been reading and some say ACTis harder and some say SAT is harder. Anyone else have an opinion?

@center, there are a couple of threads around on this. I know several kids who had truly middling SAT scores after several sittings (in the 1200s) who got 33 and 34 on the ACT. All were much weaker at math. While this suggests that the ACT is easier, it seems to depend on the kid.
The challenge on the ACT is to work quickly.

Many test prep companies offer an opportunity to take one of each and see which goes better. DS decided he’d take the SAT and only consider the ACT if it didn’t go well rather than try to optimize at the outset. I don’t think there’s a single best answer. If your child did well on the SSAT, odds are good that the SAT will be fine.

Both of our older kids took both ACT and SAT. Using the conversion charts to compare the different scales- they did roughy equivalent. Our rising senior just did ACT as he scored extremely well - didn’t feel like he needed to take the SAT.

The biggest difference is for skewed talent students.

Math is 50% of SAT, but only 25% of ACT, so a student much stronger in math may prefer SATs weighting.
Fast readers may find the ACT plays to that strength.

But, it all depends on the person and the only way to know for sure is to take a released practice test of each.

@AroundHere I’ve heard that math/science kids often do better on ACT. S17 used his ACT scores for college applications. But yes it can vary so try both SAT and ACT. Also if kid qualifies for National Merit they need SAT to move from NFSF to NMF.