SAT vs ACT college board exams

December 26, 2018 1:06 PM

How did you decide whether your kid would take the ACT or the SAT?

I wonder what went into your decision. Thanks!

posted by nantucket to Education (28 answers total)

I used to teach test prep. The conventional wisdom was that the SAT is more widely accepted but that *some* kids do better on the ACT. *Some* kids tended to be more creative, from more "alternative" or "arts" schools, and generally poor at math.
In my experience, the vast majority of students fell into one of three categories: did really well naturally on both tests (and the parents were pushing them to get even better scores); did poorly (particularly on math) on both tests and this begat a family crisis where everyone realizes that Madison does not understand basic algebra or whatever; or kid was a poor test taker and merely needed some help with that (which is what prepping does best at). In that middle category, I had many tutoring students that did not do well on the SAT so were prepping for the ACT as their parents had heard that it was easier. I believe that these students did better on the ACT because they already had more experience with standardized test tasking and/or they had gotten scared by doing poorly the first time.

But in general, I would recommend getting a free practice test (or even better GOING to a free practice session, which the test prep companies offer regularly) and trying both, just in case your kid does substantially better on one versus the others.

But the SAT is more widely accepted, so there's that. If your kid has a particular school in mind, double check that they accept the ACT if that is the route that you're going.

Side note, I grew up in the midwest and the ACT was more popular than the SAT, so that's what I took back then. When I did test prep in the Northeast, there was a firm SAT preference. When I did test prep in Southern California, it was slightly more SAT-oriented. There may be some regional preference that you'll want to poke around about.
posted by k8t at 1:20 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I took both, after looking at the requirements for the school I wanted to apply to. I think that the ACT was needed to qualify for Bright flight in MO, but that looks like its no longer true.
posted by florencetnoa at 1:22 PM on December 26, 2018

No particular thought went into our decision. My highschool senior son decided to take the SAT and that's what he stuck with. He took the SAT three times and did not make any significant gains because he did not study. My husband and I wanted him to take the ACT as well but son refused. If we pressed harder, we could have persuaded him to take ACT but did not press.

In a perfect world I would suggest to have an at least 3-month study schedule (6 months or longer best) and to take both tests. I wanted to throw money on it and pay for prep courses but husband was not keen on that idea. My son did not study and did not prep and got high enough to gain admittance to state school but score is mediocre and could have been higher with study and prep. I don't have a good argument as to why you should take both tests apart from why not. I do not know enough about the differences of the tests to comment.
posted by loveandhappiness at 1:24 PM on December 26, 2018

Aside from giving some money to two unethical, exploitative organizations instead of one, there's no reason not to take both. Among schools that take both, having both scores can't possibly hurt. Among schools that only take one, your kid will be significantly limiting their options by making a choice before deciding where to apply.
posted by eotvos at 1:28 PM on December 26, 2018 [10 favorites]

I am not a parent but when I was a student, and the choice was entirely up to me, I decided to take both and view whichever was first as a “practice” for the second test. It helped. YMMV
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 1:32 PM on December 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

I will be choosing both for my kids. I took both in high school to allow me the most flexibility in applications and consideration from various schools.
posted by jadepearl at 1:32 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure I took only the SATs because I'd taken it a few times already, my schools required it, and I had no interest in learning the ACT's whole new test paradigm when I already had 5 AP tests and three subject SATs to take.
posted by batter_my_heart at 1:51 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

My kid took the SAT because (a) we are in the Northeast and that's what most schools here expect, and (b) he had SAT subject exams we wanted to send to schools, and didn't want to pay to have them all sent separately. If I had unlimited funds I would've encouraged him to take both and pick the best, but I don't, and focusing on one also let him focus his preparation on one.
posted by metasarah at 1:55 PM on December 26, 2018

I grew up in an era and region where everybody took the SAT, and the ACT was thought of as a lesser thing that some weird kids did. Now I see that my son's school pushes the ACT heavily as superior to the SAT -- for these kids, who've gone through this particular curriculum. Have you asked his teacher(s) or school (college) counselor?
posted by BlahLaLa at 2:11 PM on December 26, 2018

The ACT seemed to be more widely expected in the southeast when I was looking at colleges, but that was ~15 years ago at this point. I believe that this is strongly a regional thing in relation to where your child is applying to go to school.
posted by isauteikisa at 3:29 PM on December 26, 2018

I made the decision myself around 1998 in Minnesota and the general wisdom at the time was that the ACT was preferred by most of the colleges in the mid-west and the U of M specifically. I took both because I liked taking tests and I'm good at them so I just wanted to know what both scores were and was confident that there was no downside for me either way.

I did end up doing a little better on the ACT.
posted by VTX at 4:15 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

All three of my children in Westchester County NY took the ACT. They all took the PSAT and did ok, but not as well as they wanted. They did very well on the ACT (33 or 34 for all of them). This was all less than 7 years ago. Their mother and I left the actual decision up to them. All three applied to and attend(ed) school south of the Mason-Dixon line.
posted by AugustWest at 4:23 PM on December 26, 2018

I grew up in an era and region where everybody took the SAT, and the ACT was thought of as a lesser thing that some weird kids did.

This was my experience, but I also remember there being a geographic element. Everybody took the SAT, but if you were applying to a school in "the West" (west of the Mississippi, maybe?), you had to take the ACT.
posted by worldswalker at 4:31 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I grew up in the Midwest and the ACT was considered a Midwestern school test. I took both, mostly because I took the ACT for local schools but did well on the PSAT so had to take the SAT for National Merit consideration. I would suggest both unless you have a strong geographical preference.
posted by stoneandstar at 6:16 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

My junior is taking both, because she’s planning to apply to schools with different preferences and we can afford both. If we could only afford one we’d probably lean toward the ACT since we’re in MN and she’s most likely to end up here or maybe Iowa.
posted by padraigin at 6:23 PM on December 26, 2018

I would take the diagnostic test for both, then study for whichever one I was better at. (If the schools I'm interested in accept either one.)
For HS students in my area, it seems accepted that the ACT is "easier" to study for, since the problems overall are more straightforward and the main difficulty is the time-crunch. For the SAT, there are some tricky questions, but time is less of an issue. I can't say for sure if these comparisons are correct though, since I only took the SAT. FWIW, no one in my friend group at the time differed in their ACT and SAT scores.
posted by typify at 6:36 PM on December 26, 2018

I think it’s mostly regionally preference and also if a school required SAT subject tests it was often cheaper to just take the ACT because it included additional sections already that subbed in for some instead.
posted by raccoon409 at 7:39 PM on December 26, 2018

SATs were easier in that they were about test-taking ability and I didn't have to study a lot since all the material was grade 9 difficulty. That said I might have had a better chance with high ACT scores because my school was known for high scores (my form class of 24 had a 2390, 2370, and 2340) so they were somewhat discounted by adcoms.
posted by ahundredjarsofsky at 1:46 AM on December 27, 2018

Both I and my kids took the ACT only, 40 some years apart. Mostly because it was more easily accessable to us, being given locally instead of having to drive an hour and a half.

Had one of my kids wanted to go somewhere the SAT was required for application, we would have done it though.
posted by domino at 6:26 AM on December 27, 2018

My kids took both because of the colleges they were applying to (this was 2 years ago). SAT is more widely accepted, but it seems that ACT is more popular in SE US.

That said, both my kids were told by counselors and other kids that the ACT was "better" for STEM kids and that most STEM kids do better with the ACT format than the SAT one. Both my kids were in STEM programs in HS. They both did well on both tests with no special classes, so I can't say that the premise is true or not.

BTW, we live in northern VA where the school system is very good.
posted by jraz at 7:06 AM on December 27, 2018

I went to high school in a rich Chicago suburb. It was typical to take both (the state paid for the ACT in the form of the Prairie State exam but I'm not sure you could use those scores easily) and use whichever scores were advantageous to you. (For most people, I think there was little difference. My ACT score was truly impressive. My SAT score was merely quite good.) Everywhere I applied to accepted both, at least on paper. It was significantly easier to give the University of Illinois an ACT score. I couldn't actually figure out how to give the UC system an ACT score (but in theory they accepted it). This was 2004 and I expect there's even less difference now.
posted by hoyland at 7:39 AM on December 27, 2018

I have a current college senior and a college freshman. They looked at schools in the midwest, on the east coast, and on the west coast. All of the schools took either test, or both (in that, if you took both tests, they wanted all the scores). Their high school required all sophomores to take the PSAT. Based on those results, my son decided to take both the SAT and ACT. He's just generally a really good standardized test-taker, and did incredibly well on both. My daughter didn't do well on the PSAT so we decided to wait on the SAT to see how she did on the ACT. She did SO WELL on the ACT that we let her skip the SAT altogether.

It's a good idea to see which test the schools the student is interested in accepts. And if a school wants ALL test scores from ALL tests, the PSAT is a good resource to see if the SAT scores will reflect the student's ability.

If you have a kid who is looking at colleges and you have any questions about the process, feel free to MeMail me. Like I said, we've done this twice now and I've helped friends whose kids' schools don't have a robust college advising department. I may have missed my calling; I LOVE the whole process!
posted by cooker girl at 7:55 AM on December 27, 2018

I took both ten years ago in the Midwest. My ACT score was really good. My SAT scores were fine. I got a good score on one of the three tests and did ok on the other two though I think I could have done well at all of them. I only sort of studied for them though. I’m good at test taking. I did refuse to take any more tests than I had to (so no retakes or SAT IIs) because they sure took a chunk of Saturday. I think I chose to take both because some colleges preferred one or the other.
posted by azalea_chant at 8:19 AM on December 27, 2018

eotvos has got it here. This strikes me as an odd question, because there's really no drawback to taking both tests besides the loss of a Saturday and a testing fee, both of which are insignificant compared to the possible upside. Unless things have changed in the last ten years or so, I'm fairly sure that you can choose which test score to submit for colleges that accept both. With that in mind, the knowledge here about which test is better for STEM-strong students or whatever is interesting but irrelevant; taking both tests strictly improves a student's options, so why not?
posted by Expecto Cilantro at 9:04 AM on December 27, 2018

Oh, also: some schools have some majors that might require (or strongly prefer) submission of an SAT subject test, so that might factor into it as well.
posted by cooker girl at 11:02 AM on December 27, 2018

I'm from MA and no one I knew took the ACT. The impression is that it was a regional test used in the midwest. Granted, this was in the 90s. Personally I'd go with the SAT as I think it's more universal and why put your kid through the hassle of prepping for both tests.
posted by emd3737 at 12:24 PM on December 27, 2018

As I alluded to but maybe didn't say strongly enough, the cost of the ACT is having to learn the ACT, not the Saturday and the test fee.
posted by batter_my_heart at 6:22 PM on December 27, 2018

When I went to college, I took both because both were needed for the schools I applied. For my kids, around here most kids seem to take both (PNW region) so that will be our default as well.
posted by alathia at 7:10 PM on January 2, 2019