<p>Do most of the top U.S. colleges accept the ACT? Would there be any discrimination against those who apply with ACT versus the SAT to east coast schools?</p>
<p>All colleges which accept SAT also accept SAT and vice versa. There is not supposed to be any bias by admissions for one test over another. I suppose you could look at the Common Data Sets for the colleges in which you are interested and compare average SAT scores and average ACT scores.</p>
<p>If you look, most people send SAT scores.</p>
<p>As ffscout says, there are no longer any schools which accept only one. The scores correlate closely and a well-established concordance between them is available.</p>
<p>All schools claim they have no preference, although there are strong trends among applicants of some schools (some getting very few SAT scores, some very few ACT scores). There is no reason to think, however, that special treatment is secretly extended to one over the other. If you look at the ACT and SAT ranges published by schools and compare them via the concordance, they usually come out quite close.</p>
<p>Anhtimmy, the ACT is more popular in midwest states than the SAT.</p>
<p>The number of students taking the ACT has risen significantly enough in the past years that the SAT will be implementing score choice next year (which the ACT already has).</p>
<p>Anhtimmy:</p>
<p>Nationally, almost as many seniors take the ACT as take the SAT, and the big increase is for the ACT. Many college counselors now recommend kids take both tests to see which they do better on. And, applicants have seen the ‘score-choice light’ as has CB. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Most schools in the East and South prefer ACT
most in the West prefer SAT but most in the west also take ACT in as well</p>
<p>Score choice light has only caused more “omg I must take all the SAT’s I can so I can get an extra 50 points”</p>
<p>I was browsing through CollegeBoard.com, and I found that most of the colleges I looked had a higher percent sending SAT’s than ACT’s. (these schools were all in the top 30 according to USNews)</p>
<p>most students take SAT where i live
some have never even heard of ACT because they’re only prominent in the south
hence also the reason why most schools mainly have SAT submissions opposed to ACT</p>
<p>Jaesango–the ACT actually is historically shown to be more popular in the midwest. that is where the majority of the test takers have been applying.
both the east and the west coasts are traditionally SAT takers.</p>
<p>but now adays it doesnt matter. school say they dont care which test you take.
although my personal opinion is that a good SAT score holds more weight because it is still taken by more students. but thats just my opinion
it depends on the school you are looking at.
BUT! i gaurantee that 98% of schools will take either test.
usually taking the ACT means you dont have to take SAT Subject tests which is nice.</p>
<p>The SAT “does not hold more weight because it is taken by more students.” 100% of all colleges listed in any USNews ranking list accept either. More take the SAT annually but not by much. Due to historical development of the tests and high school preferences in states, the SAT is the test taken by most students in eastern and western states and the ACT for most (but not all) of the states in between. In some states, Ill, Colo, and now Mich, all high school students are required to take the ACT in the spring of their junior year. That historical development has also resulted in many colleges getting a lopsided number of either tests. For example, the ivies get far more SAT’s because the vast majority of applicants are from eastern states where the SAT is taken by most. Most colleges in the middle part of the country get far more ACT’s than SAT’s for the same reason.</p>
<p>Moreover, there are a number of colleges which require SAT IIs which will accept the ACT in lieu of both the SAT and SAT IIs. For example, you can apply to Yale, Brown, Penn, Duke, Amherst, Tufts, and others with only the ACT and no SAT IIs.</p>
<p>I’ve heard this debate many times. The adcoms deny preference of one over the other. However, for many of the top schools in the East, 98% of the students submit SATs. This whole thing makes little sence to me because the ACT and SATS are different and measure different things. Comparing one Student to another on the basis of different tests makes no sense, despite the comparison charts. How can you compare ACT= SAT plus two subject tests. Clearly, the ACT is easier than a test that takes two days.</p>
<p>No it is not clearly easier just because it is done in one day. Shorter does not mean easier. You can make the ACT 5 times longer, but it doesn’t get any harder if you use the same types of questions. Yes they are different tests, but do not not understand what correlation means, or are you stupid…</p>
<p>Why are SAT II’s required when clearly the Math test is different than the literature test? Its stupid to compare students that take different tests right? The tests are not meant to directly compare student. Percentiles are used to see how well student preform relative to others and relative to the school.</p>
<p>The tests cannot be used to directly compare students, but a high ACT scores means you are smart. A high SAT score means you are smart. So if a student has a high SAT is compared to a student that has a high ACT, it can be concluded that they are both smart.</p>
<p>khoitrinh, that’s where we disagree. I know plenty of very bright kids (some with a gpa that’s close to mine) that did very badly on the SAT. However, standardized tests are what colleges look for, so I have to take them to get in, even if I disagree with what they show.</p>
<p>Personally, I believe the SAT is a measure of
- how good your test prep was, and
- how focused you are</p>
<p>Intelligence is such a subjective thing, and the SAT does not measure this well.</p>
<p>I did not say that a low score meant that you were dumb. I said that high scores mean you are smart, and I doubt anyone really disagrees with that. A smart person may not be good at test taking, but a dumb person will never be GOOD at test taking.</p>
<p>Intelligence overall is subjective, but not the type of intelligence measured on the SAT. Being good at grammar and math are very objective measurements. So you can blame your scores on the test being bad, but in reality it is a really good measure of ability. of course it isn’t perfect, but its as close as you can really ask for.</p>
<p>Good test prep increases your scores, but so does natural intelligence. I know people who have done no prep and gotten very high scores. About the focused thing though, if you cannot remain focused throughout the test, you deserve your failure of a score. Its only a few hours. If you expect to do well in college and you can’t focus completely for a few hours on something that matters then you have some problems.</p>