SAT or ACT?

foolish.mom

Traditionally, students take SAT to apply to US universities.  In recent years, I heard more students saying they will take the ACT instead.
Please read this article:
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/standardizedtests/tp/sat-act.htm

Any opinion or personal experience?  Knowing anyone who got admitted to top US universities using ACT instead of SAT?

Shootastar

回覆 foolish.mom 的帖子

Most of the US universities would accept either ACT or SAT.
My D received several offers from top US colleges on the strength of ACT score. My daughter took both SAT and ACT. Her performance in ACT was better than SAT so she submitted her ACT score when she applied for admission to the US colleges. Apart from ACT, she also submitted 3 SAT II subject tests.
As a matter of tactic, one should take both tests. He could choose the "higher" score of the test to submit.

The following table shows the equivalent score of both tests:

ACT Composite Score	Estimated   SAT CR+M+W	Estimated   SAT CR+M+W   (Score Range)	ACT Composite Score
36	2390	2380–2400	36
35	2330	2290–2370	35
34	2250	2220–2280	34
33	2180	2140–2210	33
32	2120	2080–2130	32
31	2060	2020–2070	31
30	2000	1980–2010	30
29	1940	1920–1970	29
28	1880	1860–1910	28
27	1820	1800–1850	27
26	1770	1740–1790	26
25	1710	1680–1730	25
24	1650	1620–1670	24
23	1590	1560–1610	23
22	1530	1510–1550	22
21	1470	1450–1500	21
20	1410	1390–1440	20
19	1350	1330–1380	19
18	1290	1270–1320	18
17	1230	1210–1260	17
16	1170	1140–1200	16
15	1100	1060–1130	15
14	1020	990–1050	14
13	950	910–980	13
12	870	820–900	12
11	780	750–810	11

A score of 34 in ACT is more or less equivalent to SAT 2,200 (which are usually required of by top US colleges).

Shootastar

The 1st and the 4th column of the above table is the ACT score

The 2nd column is the estimated equivalent SAT score of ACT score.

The 3rd column is the range of SAT score for a particular score of ACT. For example, a score of 34 of ACT is estimated to be equivalent to 2,250 and is more accurately estimated as a score between 2,200 to 2,280.

foolish.mom

回覆 Shootastar 的帖子

Thank you for your information.  Many US universities declare that they accept both SAT and ACT, but I note from the statistics that far more students submitted SAT scores to top universities than ACT. Your real person example makes me feel more comfortable with ACT now.  Thank you so much.

foolish.mom

回覆 小之爸 的帖子

SAT and ACT drilling classes are provided by most tutorial centres.  Some students may study on their own by doing sample test packs,and memorizing the SAT vocabularies.
As far as I know, top US universities require SAT reasoning test score or ACT, plus at least 2 AP or SAT subject test scores.

Shootastar

回覆 小之爸 的帖子

The American education system is the liberal art system. The corner stone of a liberal art education system is to allow the flexibility for the students to form its own curriculum by taking different combination of subjects according to his interest.
For example, in case of maths, in each grade, the school would offer 2 to 3 levels to the students to choose. If he is competent in Maths, he could take the higher level, instead of an ordinary or lower level. It is also the case of art subjects. If his English is good, he could take literature class. If he is not good, he could take the general class.

AP courses are the highest level of each subjects. For the top US colleges they would expect the applicants to have 4 to 6 AP courses and each of score of 4 or 5. Depending on the policy of each college, if a student has a score of 4 or 5 in a particular subject, he is usually exempted from taking that subject in the first year or he is allowed to take a more advanced course in the first year.

The above is not applicable to a student not coming from US education system. If you take IB or AL, the top colleges would also assess your competitiveness by making reference to your score of IB or AL. In that case, they would expect you to submit scores of 2 to 3 SAT subject tests in order to have a fair and better comparison to the students of US education system (in addition to SAT or ACT score).