<p>As you may have heard recently, the ACT has just eclipsed the SAT to become the most popular college admissions exam in the nation. While part of it includes the mandatory testing in 9 states, it still doesn't account for the overall expanding influence that ACT has on school across the entire nation. The preconceived notion that the ACT is a Midwest thing is no longer as true as it seems. Even my school in Florida administers the ACT, but NOT the SAT. </p>
<p>Yet when go on collegeconfidential.com, the amount of posts and topics for the SATs nearly quadruple the amount of ACT posts. While much of that comes from the helpfulness of the SAT guides here on college confidential (looking at you, silverturtle), I don't understand why the SAT is so popular. What is with its mystique? The argument that colleges prefer the SAT over the ACT seems to be invalid these days, with nearly all colleges treating each test with equal weight. And the ACT seems much more straightforward and made for the overachievers in CC, due to the higher degree of mathematics on the ACT. So, what gives?</p>
<p>Is it the culture of America making high SAT scores more impressive than equivalent ACT scores?</p>
<p>Is the idea of a composite ACT score less definitive than an SAT score?</p>
<p>When you look at a television show, what test do they talk about? The SAT. You always hear about people getting a 1600 on the SAT. It’s one of those major accomplishments.</p>
<p>In Virginia, the SAT is used far more. At most schools, about 90% of students submit SAT scores. Only about 30% submit ACT scores.</p>
<p>I don’t have the time to address your entire question, but I want to explain briefly the 36 v 2400 issue you brought up. Statistically, it is far more rare to find a person with a 2400 than a 36. Just look at the published stats from previous years and you’ll see a significantly smaller portion of 2400s. If you eliminate superscorers, the numbers are even lower. In addition, the media does make a bigger deal about a 2400, so people naturally will also think of the SAT in a more favorable manner. Nonetheless, a 36 on the ACT is a wonderful achievement and deserves proper recognition.</p>
<p>ACT and SAT compete with each other just as in any service industry. SAT has:
The NMSQT/PSAT. This helps them becuase students that study for it have, in a sense, already studied for SAT. Any finalists are required to take the SAT.
SAT II. If you have to take them, why not take the SAT as well ?<br>
Established/traditional market on the east and west coast
A following. Some students do better on their narrower topic focus. </p>
<p>The numbers 2400 and 36 are arbitrary and used to distinguish the tests in the marketplace. Schools are really looking at percentile rank for any standardized test.</p>
<p>I would say a possible reason is because this site seems to have an unproportional amount of users from the east and west coasts, which are the only places where SAT is bigger. I don’t know if this is because CC has just caught on more in those areas, or that there is possibly a bit more pressure to succeed in those areas and midwest / southern people aren’t as likely to post about the test (that could be total BS).</p>
<p>My son has taken the ACT 3 times and the SAT twice (waiting on 10/6 SAT scores now), but I’d estimate that here in Missouri there are about three times more ACT-takers than SAT-takers. Of course, anyone who is in the running for the Natl Merit takes the SAT. However, other than Natl Merit, we have not heard of any schools or programs that require SAT, and there are actually some that require the ACT. All of the sschools on my son’s list will take either/or. I find that “1600” thing interesting. in our area of the country, if anyone heard 1600, they’d think that was quite a low SAT score, because it has been a 2400 test for quite a few years now. I guess things really differ depending on where you live.</p>
<p>@ jennieling, I didn’t learn about the writing portion and 2400 until 9th grade when I took the PSAT for the first time. I didn’t know about the ACT until 10th grade. A lot of what I knew about the SAT was from 90s television and books where they’d always talk about trying to get a 1600.</p>
<p>I think 1600 has a better ring to it than 2400 too…16 is a special number and a perfect square and 6 is a perfect number and it just sounds like a better number to be a perfect score than 2400…</p>
<p>I would like to know that between the two tests ACT and SAT ,can a student send both the scores in the common app for the undergrad application.My son has 2100 SAT SCORE and 33 ACT or should he choose one test score</p>
<p>The SAT is associated with the nation’s more stereotypically intellectual states: the West Coast and the Northeast. It has more of a gleam to it.</p>
<p>No, emberjed. It is that CC skews disproportionately to the east and the west, where the SAT is the norm. That’s all. I used to think that way when I grew up on the east coast, but then I, well, grew up.</p>
<p>I can only speak to my region…south, but SAT has seemed more popular. My Ds took ACT only because district paid for it, we were happy with SAT scores. I know there are schools that use scores diffently, but of the 12 schools Ds applied to (about half are highly selective), all superscored SAT but not ACT which to me makes SAT more friendly as far as raising score. Plus many of these same schools required SAT subject tests so I guess around here we’re more in the SAT frame of mind.</p>
<p>However, some schools are superscore the ACT.
From The College Solution:
Some of the big-name schools that superscore the ACT include Amherst College, Boston College, Brandeis University, Haverford College, New York University, Tufts University, U.S. Naval Academy, University of Maryland, University of North Carolina, Washington University in St. Louis and Williams College.</p>
<p>4kidsdad - I know some schools superscore ACT that’s why I qualified it by saying of the ones my Ds applied to and that they included some very selective schools - just mostly in south. Now youngest is sophmore so may be changing for some schools…I just think it speaks to why more people I know take the SAT (or have historically).</p>
<p>Because college adcoms are grownups, emberjed, and they are going to recognize that the ACT and SAT are simply regional differences, of no more consequence than differing time zones. They aren’t going to treat one differentially vs the other.</p>
<p>My dad won’t let me take the SAT. Even though he went to a Midwest school himself, he thinks that the ACT is looked down upon in admissions officies.</p>
<p>Actually, if anything, I think it’s kind of weird when an East Coast / West Coast kid takes the ACT, since they have to search it out a bit. It seems a bit like … I tried to figure out how to jerry-rig the system by searching out the test that’s uncommon in my area.</p>
<p>Emberjed, where in the world did you get the idea that anyone has a stereotype that East/West coast people are more intellectual? I have never heard anyone hold such a stereotype of the West Coast. East Coast, maybe–but more so in the days of Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, etc, not now. If anything, the stereotype (NOT true, I emphasize, but a stereotype) of the West Coast is “hippie, relaxed, surfing, etc”, whereas many Midwestern colleges are thought to be (and indeed are) very intellectual: U of Chicago, Wash U, Carleton, Grinnell; Northwestern. I think that only East/West dwellers themselves have the stereotype that you suggested.</p>