Almost every college that I have been to has ALWAYS had higher expectations for the ACT than the new SAT.
Here is what I mean:
The scaling SHOULD go like this (Feel free to check me literally every source says the same thing)
1400 SAT = 30 ACT
However I was looking through my college choices and saw places like Maryland for instance have the following statistics:
ACT Avg: 30-33
SAT Avg: 1330 to 1440
Here are the conversions:
ACT Converted to SAT: 1390-1510
vs ACTUAL which = 1330 to 1440 -->>> 50 point gap how???
SAT Converted to ACT: 28-31
vs ACUAL which = 30-33 (29.5 est. average vs 31.5 est. avg.)???
So my questions is why are schools excepting lower SAT scores and higher ACT scores? I get that it is a new test but it certainly shouldn’t matter that much as test prep facilities were already fully prepared with New SAT materials long before the test came out.
I got a 1400 on the SAT and a 30 on the ACT. A 1400 would place me at above average for Maryland (15 pts over) while and ACT would place me at the bottom tier of the expectations of 30-33. In my opinion the SAT is MUCH easier than the ACT, and I have seen an increased number of students who aren’t the brightest getting 1400 plus on the test yet getting 26/27 on the ACT.
My main concern is that the new scores this year will rise the average SATs through the roof for most colleges, and a 1400 will be the new mediocre score. What do you think will happen, and what is really accounting for this weird scaling?
Common Data Set reports ACT Composite but SAT by category.
So . . .
UMD 2016 Common Data Set
25th percentile/75th percentile
ACT Composite: 28/33
SAT Critical Reading: 590/690
SAT Math: 620/730
There are different concordance schedules for conversion of ACT to new SAT. It’s also a range. College Board does list 1390 to 1410 as corresponding to a 30. You have a 1400 and 30. That’s dead on.
Send the score you think will help you best. Understand that SAT is a broader scale so it’s hard to compare the 25/75. Was a 32 the 70 percentile or 50 percentile? 1400 may dip to a lower percentile than 33 but again you don’t have a composite SAT percentile chart.
Hmmm, that’s a really tight range of SAT scores for middle 50%. Something see,S off, especially compared to CDS, even if adjusted for attending vs admitted.
There are various reasons why any particular colleges middle 50% ranges of the ACT and SAT scores tests may vary from the concordance tables put out by College Board and ACT and the more important ones have nothing to do with one test being easier than another. For many higher ranked private schools you can find that the ACT range actually appears to be lower than the SAT range if you rely on the concordance tables. But the reason for that is not because anyone considers the ACT test to be harder than the SAT. It instead results from the fact that the college superscores SAT tests and not ACT, resulting in the SAT test having a higher middle 50% range than it would otherwise have if it was not superscored. You can sometimes find ACT ranges to be higher than SAT ranges at some public universities, which apparently may have happened at Maryland, not because one test is considered harder than the other but because the state favors state residents in admission and most applicants from the state take the SAT while the vast majority who submit ACT are from out of state and need higher scores on average to be admitted.
While the superscoring raises an interesting angle in considering reported score ranges, I don’t think I’ve seen a single highly-ranked school report a middle 50 for New SAT that is higher than the school’s middle 50 ACT than the College Board’s 2016 concordance suggests. It seems to run in the opposite direction - the few highly-ranked schools that have reported middle 50 New SAT total scores for class of 2021 tend to be lower than the concordance would suggest for the school’s reported middle 50 ACTs (which makes sense if the concordance was based on percentiles; the 2016 percentiles turned out to be inaccurate and have since been revised).
The mere existence of the concordance may have muddied the waters both of scores students chose to report at schools where choice is allowed and of score ranges published by schools that required students to report all scores.
The regional preference of test such as state mandated test would contribute much more to the bias in mid 50 differences of public colleges. One example is the switch from.mandated ACT to SAT in Michigan last year. The new SAT mid 50 dropped after the switch, although it may also be partly contributed by the error of small sample size from last year.
honestly just look at the 25-75 for the ACT/SAT separately. whichever score is better for you percentilewise is the one u should go with. also some schools have vastly different ACT score ranges vs SAT score ranges, just go with whichever one is better for you
My daughter’s school has at least 5 students got 36 perfect score at one sitting. Nobody got 1600 on SAT.
The best score is 1580. I guess 1500 is 33 to 34 range.