According to the September 6th LA Times article, "ACT is to SAT as..." the world of standardized tests is in flux. The ACT is rapidly gaining on the SAT. For the recent class of high school graduates, 1.4 million took the ACT, 1.5 million the SAT. Even in California, a regional SAT stronghold, 50% more students took the ACT in 2008 than did in 2004. Still, in all honesty, the raw numbers show that, last year, the SAT in California was taken by over 205,000 students, with 72,000 taking the ACT. Yet, the ACT is starting to close the gap.
One troubling piece of information the article mentioned was that, in California, 97% of college bound students still take the SAT, meaning the ACT is surging because these same students are taking both tests to cover all the bases in the ever competitive admissions process. This is a lot of wasted effort. Most college admissions offices will gladly take either test to fulfill their standardized testing requirements. Some of the most elite schools in the country, including Amherst College, Brown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Pomona College, Tufts, University of Pennsylvania, and Vassar, will accept the ACT instead of the SAT and the SAT subject tests. There might be better ways for these students to spend their time than taking two tests, when either will do.
So which test should you take? OK, I'll relent a little bit. If you're applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or the University of Rochester, you might elect to take the SAT. These admissions offices like to see SAT scores. Regardless, even if you submit only an ACT to any of them, they can easily convert your ACT score into a comparable SAT score. The CollegeBoard itself issues an official 'ACT/SAT concordance chart,' downloadable at http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/act-sat-concordance-tables.pdf. Then again, it is a fact that the SAT is rooted in the Ivy League: the original administration of the test in 1926 was to 8,026 Ivy League scholarship students. Regardless, how ever much you might want to cater to the whims of an admissions office, the standardized test you submit will, in virtually all cases, not sink or make your application. A 2220 on the SAT will not trump a 33 composite on the ACT.
The decision as to which test should more be a matter of personal preference. If you are good at taking high school classroom tests, then the ACT might be the better test for you. It is curriculum based; it attempts to measure your mastery of key high school skills. For example, if you were paying attention in geometry, you should know about a 30-60-90 triangle. Be assured there will be a question about it on the ACT. The SAT, on the other hand, measures reasoning and logic. The ACT does not penalize guessing; the SAT does. The ACT has a separate science section; the SAT does not. The ACT math contains a bit of trigonometry; the SAT doesn't.
Yet beyond the constant skirmishes between the ACT and SAT, a lot of schools are opting out of the standardized tests altogether. Just go to www.fairtest.org to see the current list of over 770 colleges and universities that do not require students to submit standardized tests with their applications. Further, just two weeks ago, Wake Forest, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Smith College, joined this list. So, what does all this add up to? Complete lack of uniformity among our colleges and constant questioning of the role of standardized tests in the admissions process. There are no right answers, just different approaches. You, in the end, are the final judge as to which serves your purposes best. This is the American postsecondary educational system and it shouldn't, and probably never will, be any other way.
The SAT under Siege