I am sometimes asked if students need to take both the SAT and ACT and the quick answer is no. A student only needs to take one standardized test for college admissions. The question then becomes, which test.
All students should take at least one practice test of the SAT and ACT. The College Board and ACT each offer a free practice test for students to take. The practice test should be taken under standard testing procedures to get the best estimate of your score. After taking each test the student should consider on which test they had the best score and focus their studies on that test. To compare the scores on the two tests, look at one of the comparison tables available.
There are other issues and some of those are reviewed at our page on the SAT or ACT.
Your concordance is based off of information that is over a decade old. Have either College Board or ACT released more recent data?
Comment by DJK — May 27, 2008 @ 6:35 am
DJK,
You are correct that the concordance table I referenced is from 1995. ACT had indicated in 2004 that they would be coming out with an updated concordance table in Fall 2006 but to my knowledge this is still not out. I suspect that they had hoped to put together a table comparing the new writing sections but the writing sections have been less than generally accepted in the admissions community.
Another problem with the current concordance table is that the SAT re-centered their scores in 1995. This was done because the average SAT score had dropped down close to 400 rather than the 500 which was to have been the average score. To bring the scores back up in line, SAT added points to scores to bring the average back up. Thus a 1994 score of 550 would be completely different in 1996, closer to 625 to 650. The concordance tables are comparing old SAT data and is thus skewed.
I have raised this issue with the College Board and ACT but have had no response.
There are other potential issues but the bottom line is that the concordance tables are “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules” as is was so eloquently put in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Comment by Todd Johnson — May 27, 2008 @ 8:41 am
It is possible to create a concordance table from published data if you base it on percentiles. Would that be something you believe would be helpful to students?
Comment by Mark Truman — June 21, 2008 @ 3:22 am
You might be able to put together a concordance table but the accuracy of it would probably not be much greater than the current tables. The latest word from the ACT is that there is a new concordance table out later this summer. We will see.
As to the usefullness of the concordance table to students, as long as colleges are using the current concordance tables, I don’t think using a more accurate one would be helpful. Once the ACT or SAT come out with a new table, that table will presumably be adopted by the colleges and then will give students a better handle on trying to compare scores across exams.
Comment by Todd Johnson — June 21, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Is ACT and SAT exams offered here in the Philippines?
Comment by Nicole — July 7, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
Nicole,
Here is a link to the Collegeboard site for information about the SAT in the Phillippines.
http://apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch/center/searchOverseasAdvCenterRegion.jsp?intRegion=7
I hope that helps.
Comment by Todd Johnson — July 7, 2008 @ 9:16 pm
Well, I am currently an applicant at the US Air Force Academy and they told me to take the ACT or SAT exam. Which exam should i take in your opinion? I’m good in grammar, reading comprehension and science.
Comment by Nicole — July 19, 2008 @ 1:14 am
Nicole,
It appears that both the SAT and ACT are offered in the Phillippines. So take a practice test of each exam to see which one you do better on. Then focus your effort on improving the test which was your best one.
The College Board (SAT) and ACT both offer practice tests on their web sites. Use those as your practice test. Most colleges, including the Air Force Academy, don’t care which test you take. You simple want to present your best score on either test.
Absent taking a practice test there isn’t a good way to tell which test might be better for you. Generally, the ACT is based more on what you have learned in school while the SAT is based more on reasoning. However, with the recent changes to the SAT there really isn’t a huge difference anymore.
Comment by Todd Johnson — July 19, 2008 @ 1:26 pm