My son got at 34 on his ACT test and a 1480 on his SAT.
My question is, should he only submit his ACT or would it look better to submit both?
Thanks!
depends on the college. what colleges is he looking at?
I think the 34 ACT is all you need to submit along with at least 2 SAT subject tests. The 34 ACT is better than the 1480 SAT.
It depends on the section score distributions.
When you say score distributions, you mean the SAT superscore?
The breakdown of both. A 34C ACT could be 36E 36M 32R 32S which would be looked upon more favorably at a lot schools as they value the English and Math scores more. An SAT score of 740/740 might look better than say 800V 680M or vice-versa.
Thanks for the info Dolemite! Makes sense.
Also, I know that all schools say that they ONLY look at the highest score, but is that truly the case?
If so, why not show them that he also performed very well on the SAT?
Is there really that big of a difference between a 34 ACT and a 1480 SAT?
I have always been skeptical of the comment that they only look at the highest score. I am sure they superscore for CDS purposes (makes the reported stat’s higher) and I don’t doubt that at some level they are looking at 1 set of superscores across candidates, but the fact is they have access to all the data, so consciously or subconsciously there must be a difference in the mind of an AO when looking a kid who scores 1480 in one sitting and another who gets there by super scoring through multiple tries.
Agree with @Dolemite that your decision to submit both scores is dependent on how well your kid did on the subsections (and if he has a stated interest (STEM kid/not STEM kid). As a general matter, I don’t think showing a lower score (here the SAT) helps.
Keep in mind that a new, actual SAT-ACT concordance is expected to be published this summer. I would also consult the published data for the schools when comparing scores, especially the section scores.
https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics