Should I retake the ACT or take the SAT? Need some advice please.

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>I'll keep this short, I recently took the ACT (haven't reported it anywhere yet) and received a 34. I honestly didn't prep very much unless you count a class I took the day before.</p>

<p>My question is whether or not I should consider retaking the ACT or if I should even bother with the SAT. I plan on applying to schools such as the University of Michigan, University of California - Berkeley, and Columbia (a guy can dream). I heard somewhere that the west coast schools prefer the SAT? I only worry that if I retake the ACT or take the SAT I won't receive a better score whether its below a 34 or the equivalent in the SAT.</p>

<p>Knowing my potential college choice ranges, would you wonderful people suggest I retake the ACT or SAT or simply stick with my 34?</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for anyone willing to give me some advice!</p>

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<p>franstar, you might want to take the SAT. Some people do much better on one than the other. If you don’t do as well on the SAT, then you can just send your great ACT score. If you ace the SAT, you can send that. If you do as well on the SAT as you did on the ACT, you can send both. I don’t see any down-side to taking the SAT, at least once!</p>

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<p>I agree with Barfly. Some people do better on one test than another. I took the October 2011 SAT and got a 1960, took the October 2011 ACT and got a 32 (no prep, similar to you). I decided that I would take both again even though a lot of people told me I didn’t need to take my ACT again (and honestly you probably don’t either, the only school that might not take it is Berkeley but don’t quote me on that). Ended up increasing my SAT score by 250 points for a 2210. You might just want to take the SAT to see how it goes and maybe try the ACT again to see if goes any higher (even if the whole score doesn’t go up, the superscore could go up) and then submit the better of the two or if the scores are about equal then even both. Hope I helped and best of luck!</p>

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<p>Thanks a lot guys, do you know if Berkeley prefers one test or another (or Chicago/UoM for that matter)? Also, does Columbia make you submit all of the tests you’ve taken? Can i chose not to send some?</p>

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<p>Berkeley accepts both tests, with no CLEAR preference for one.</p>

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<p>I’m not 100% percent sure, but I believe Columbia superscores. So when sending scores, you could only send all the scores of a test (e.g all SAT scores) while witholding your ACT scores.</p>