Ventures Scholars: High School e-News

Students Increasingly Hedge Their Bets by Taking Both the SAT and the ACT
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 18, 2005; Page D1

Jessica Malin, a high-school senior in Cherry Hill, N.J., was disappointed with her SAT score of 1330. But rather than take the test again, the straight-A student and swim-team captain tried an alternative, the ACT.

Without any preparation at all, she scored a 33 out of a possible 36, or the equivalent of about 1500 on the SAT. "I would never have gotten that if I took the SATs," says Ms. Malin, who is hoping to go to Duke University in Durham, N.C., this fall.

The choice of which college-admissions test to take has long broken down along roughly geographical lines. Students on both coasts have tended to take the SAT, while their counterparts in much of the South, the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states favor the ACT. But as students, parents and high-school counselors look to play every angle in the competitive college-admissions game, many have learned, to their surprise, that they actually have a choice. Taking the "other" test sometimes means not only higher scores but a better chance of getting into their top schools.

In the past five years, the number of high-school graduates taking the ACT has risen 15% to 1.2 million nationwide, with the increase being particularly dramatic in East Coast states. (By comparison, some 1.4 million high-school graduates took the SAT at least once last year.) But the number of graduates who took the ACT at least once last year in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Virginia is more than double what it was five years earlier. In Connecticut, the number nearly tripled to 3,366. Meanwhile, the College Board, the nonprofit that owns the SAT, says it has seen a significant increase in SAT test-takers over the past five years in states such as Utah and Nevada, where plenty of students take the ACT.

The changes come at a time when the question of when -- and how many -- tests to take is suddenly up for grabs. The SAT for the first time is adding a writing component, and many students will have the choice this year of taking either the old or new version -- or both.

Partly in response to this shift, schools and high-school counselors are advising students to think twice about which test they take if they plan to take only one. New York-based test-prep company Princeton Review Inc. is launching a course this summer that, among other things, aims to help steer students to the test that is best suited to them.

DUELING TESTS
More students are taking both the SAT and the ACT

• Traditional SAT states seeing growth in students taking the ACT: Maine, New Hampshire and Virginia

• Traditional ACT states seeing growth in students taking the SAT: Utah and Idaho

• Princeton Review will offer a new course to help students decide which test plays to their strengths

Despite the regional origins of the two entrance exams, more colleges and universities now accept either one. That list includes many top schools such as Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. "We want students to have every opportunity to reveal themselves at their best," says Christoph Guttentag, director of undergraduate admissions at Duke, which has been accepting both test results for more than a decade.

In cases where students take both tests, most schools simply take the higher of the two scores. Penn falls into that category; the school uses charts that show scoring equivalents between the two tests, says Lee Stetson, dean of admissions. While most of the school's applicants submit only SAT scores, more students have been trying both SAT and ACT exams in recent years, he says. Some schools show a preference for one over the other, or, like Wake Forest University, accept only the SAT. But such schools are small in number, according to the College Board.

The fact that more schools offer this option is important because each test has features that play to students with different academic strengths. One example: The SAT often favors students with better vocabularies, while the ACT may be better suited to students who do well in school but aren't great test-takers. (See the chart for further comparisons between the two tests.)

Some Major Changes
THE SAT VS. THE ACT

A look at how the two tests compare:

TEST DESCRIPTION STUDENTS THAT HAVE AN EDGE SCORING
SAT A test focused on reasoning ability that will have a new incarnation in time for spring. The new SAT will no longer include word analogies but will contain more algebra and reading passages. Those with a strong vocabulary; and students who do well on reasoning problems. Each section scored on a scale of 200-800. (With the new writing test, the highest score possible will be 2400 instead of the current 1600.)

ACT A test, about three hours long, focused more on what's actually taught in high school. Made up of four sections: English , Math, Reading and Science. Optional writing test due out in February. Students who do well in school, but aren't as good at taking tests; also, students comfortable with science. On a scale from 1 to 36.

This year, at St. Mary's Academy, an all-girls Catholic school in Inglewood, Calif., college counselor Kelly Farland is encouraging juniors to take the ACT instead of the SAT. "I believe the ACT is a more forgiving standardized test," he says, in part because its scoring system doesn't penalize for random guessing.

At Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, Conn., about one in five seniors this year is taking the ACT, either instead of or along with the SAT. In a state where the SAT dominates, that is a significant increase from past years, when only one or two seniors out of a class of about 500 students took the test, says Larry Rich, director of guidance at the school.

Test prep firm Kaplan Inc., a unit of the Washington Post Co., says its ACT business in Northeast states is "a little over double" what it was the year before, according to Jon Zeitlin, general manager. Despite the increase, Kaplan's ACT business still is less than 5% of its total SAT business in that region, he points out.

If students want to choose which scores to send out, they can indicate while registering for the tests that they don't want the scores sent to the colleges. That way, a student who bombs the SAT can have just the ACT scores sent.

The SAT, formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, became a popular admissions tool among East Coast colleges after World War II. The ACT, owned by the Iowa City, Iowa, nonprofit ACT Inc., was marketed more as an admissions test to state colleges and universities in the late 1950s, when it was known as the American College Test.

The two tests are on the verge of making some major modifications to the questions they ask students. The ACT and the SAT are expected to add long-awaited writing components to their exams early this year. Unlike with the SAT's writing test, that section will be optional on the ACT. (A caveat for those eager to opt out of the writing test: Check first to see whether your college requires it.)

In addition, the new version of the SAT no longer will include word analogies, but will contain more algebra and reading passages.

Traditionally, students with a strong vocabulary have had a competitive advantage with the SAT, because its verbal section tests that skill. There is no vocabulary quizzing on the ACT; instead, it tests language skills through reading comprehension and grammar questions, says Adam Robinson, founder of RocketReview, an SAT-preparation Web site.

Still, the SAT is "significantly more coachable" than the ACT, Mr. Robinson says. He recommends the SAT to students who have only a couple of months to prepare, as their scores are likely to change more dramatically.

The ACT is a test that experts say traditionally has been linked more closely to a typical high-school curriculum than the SAT, which is known for being more of a "reasoning" test. That is why the ACT may be better suited to students who generally do well in school but don't always ace standardized tests.

The math sections of the two tests also are substantially different: At first blush, the ACT's math section may seem harder, as the questions go all the way up to basic trigonometry, Mr. Robinson says. However, the SAT's math section contains reasoning questions that can seem more like brain teasers, so "it often stumps kids" who do well in their high-school math classes, he adds.

Good at Reading
Students who are particularly strong at reading comprehension might consider the ACT -- it not only has a reading section but also a science section that requires strong reading skills. The SAT doesn't have a science section.

Another appeal to some students taking the ACT is that they can be less afraid of guessing. That is because unlike the ACT, the SAT takes off more points for wrong answers than for blank ones.