<p>Over the years I have heard lots of students report that they did better on the ACT than the SAT, but never the other way round. I assume that this has been discussed before on CC - what are the most popular explanations for this phenomenon?</p>
<p>Also, has anyone done research on how SAT and ACT scores are standardized and compared? It seems problematic to me that ACT test-takers as a group are (most likely) lower-achieving than SAT test takers as a group. For example, the ACT is administered to all high school students in a number of states, whereas the SAT is taken exclusively by college-bound students. Is that taken into account when ACT scores are compared to SAT scores, or do we compare scores by percentile ranking only?</p>
<p>As far as I know colleges use the SAT/ACT Concordance to convert between the scores. [ACT-SAT</a> Concordance](<a href=“http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/]ACT-SAT”>The ACT Test for Students | ACT) Since that is based on actual test data it would seem there must be some students who score higher on the SAT to make up for those who score the other way.<br>
<p>Yes, there definitely is a problem: it is absolutely true that many on the east coast and west coast believe that those in the Midwest where the ACT predominates “are (most likely) lower-achieving.” </p>
<p>Your premise is incorrect. Individual reports of doing better on ACT than SAT do not establish what students do as a whole. Many have also reported the opposite. The reality is that the conversion tables you find at the ACT’s and SAT’s sites were based on a study mainly of those who took both tests and what you see is a fairly good comparison of scores and most who took both tests actually scored in close to the same range/percentile on both as shown in the conversion tables. Also, though it is true that some states administer the ACT to all of their high school students, three, Delaware, Maine, and Idaho do the same with the SAT.</p>
<p>It is the ACT test takers who should be claiming unfairness in the admission process because majority of colleges superscore SAT, so you can get a higher score for admission than the scores you have on a single test, and most of those same colleges do not superscore ACT. Thus, you have to have one ACT test where all four of your section scores are good to qualify for admission to the same colleges where the SAT takers can get the benfit of doing away with a poor section score on one test by a higher section score on another.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, thanks for the link! After I read the “ACT/College Board Joint Statement and Tables”, I wonder if the concordance group is heavily biased towards students who took the ACT first and then decided to give the SAT a try after being disappointed with their ACT score. The concordance group are all students who took both tests; the ACT between Sept 2004 and June 2005, and the SAT between March 2005 and June 2005. The different time frames make it much more likely that the ACT was taken first. </p>
<p>That’s also consistent with the observation that there seem to be quite a few students who do significantly better on the ACT than the SAT (few of these in the concordance group) than vice versa (probably the majority of students in the concordance group, who largely determined the score comparison chart). </p>
<p>drusba, I have not attempted to compare students from the Midwest to their peers on the East and West Coast. I have merely pointed out that the two tests cater to groups of students so dissimilar that comparing scores might require more care than what’s currently being done. Do you really doubt that college-bound students as a group most likely outperform the general population on an academic achievement test? Also, the three states with state-wide SAT testing nowhere near balance out the ten states with state-wide ACT testing. Delware, Idaho and Maine have a combined population of 3.7 million. The ten ACT states have a combined population of 46 million.</p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better, I have no personal stake in devaluing the ACT. I am not a college applicant and I don’t have kids who are applying to college; in fact, I applied to college with ACT scores myself back in the days.</p>
<p>It would be really nice to see the CB and ACT, Inc. get together and publish data of linked SAT-ACT scores for each senior class. Corrections could be made if necessary for first test/last test, etc.</p>
<p>But I’m not holding my breath: I just finished what I thought would be a simple project to plot historical ACT average scores back to the late 60s. The project cost me about 10 hours of work, in large part because ACT, Inc. doesn’t publish the data before about 1990.</p>
I don’t understand the bias you are referring to. Equivalent scores are matched up by comparing scores of equal percentile in the group of 300,000 students. These 300,000 students took both the ACT and the SAT, so there isn’t a population bias.</p>
<p>In reference to your other claim: I know people who do better on the SAT than the ACT. I know someone with a 2370 and a 31 (2050), someone with a 2300 and a 31 (2050), someone with a 2240 and a 32 (2120), someone with a 2330 and a 34 (2250), and someone with a 2200 and a 28 (1860). Just to name a few.</p>
The problem is how their concordance group is assembled. They take students who took both exams during specific time periods, and it is very problematic from a statistical point of view that they used different time periods for the two exams. Suppose I told you that I took the ACT sometime between September and June, and the SAT between March and June. Guess which exam I took first? Probably the ACT. And most of these ACT-first students were probably unhappy with their ACT score, or else they would have not taken the SAT afterwards. Hence the concordance group is probably biased towards students who underperformed on the ACT.</p>
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Yes, that’s kind of the point of talking about trends.</p>