Should My Student Take the SAT or ACT: Which Test is Easier

Should I take the SAT or ACT: Which Test is Easier

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It’s that time of year again! The holidays are over and parents of high school juniors are starting to stress out about college admissions.

All break, the stress of college admissions faded away and now that students are back, parents are starting to wonder what, if anything, they should be doing to prepare their students to apply to college.

The first big hurdle parents tackle for college admissions and test prep is what test should their student should take and when. In the future, I will discuss how to opt-out of the tests entirely- spoiler alert: test optional- read more about it here - but for right now, I am going to help parents decide which test to take.

Most parents I work with in Northern Virginia are familiar with the SAT but not as familiar with the ACT. In fact, many have never even heard of the ACT. Some parents in my area seem to believe that colleges on the east coast only take the SAT or prefer the SAT. That is not true.

The truth is that most colleges do not have a preference for the SAT or ACT. Your student should submit the test that they prefer and feel confident taking.

How to Choose Between the SAT and ACT- Which Test is Easier

The question that always comes up when I tell parents that their student could take either the SAT or ACT: “which test is easier?”

What I tell parents is there is not really an easier test, each one presents its own challenges. The ACT is a fast pace test with a science and math section a lot of students find challenging. What I like about the ACT, however, is it is a straightforward test. There does not seem to be a lot of trick questions.

The SAT is has a no-calculator section, which can be hard to adjust to, and has a reading section many students tend not to enjoy. The word problems for math can present a challenge. However, I find that the SAT tends to be predictable in terms of the types of questions they ask for math.

There is not really an “easier” test when it comes to the SAT or ACT. I do find that once a student takes both tests they are able to figure out which one they prefer. The goal is to find a test that works best for your student.

The Easiest Way to Decide Whether the SAT or ACT is the “right test”

There is an easy way to choose the right test for your student. Many tutoring and test prep companies will tell you to take a practice test of each and compare the scores to see which test your student scored higher on (see the SAT/ACT concordance chart here to compare SAT and ACT scores).

I recommend, however, that juniors take a real SAT and ACT. I tell all the parents who call around this time a year for test prep to have the student take the February ACT and the March SAT to get an accurate baseline.

While I see the value in practice tests, I’ve known far too many students who do well in practice but have issues when they sit down and take the SAT. I also know a lot of students who did not take their PSAT seriously, which is why I do not use the PSAT as a baseline.

How a student performs in practice is not how they perform in real life. The results from practice tests and real tests can vary, it is a good idea to take a real test to see what happens.

Again, this is why I recommend that students take a real SAT and ACT before the summer so they can decide which test works best for them. If you take only one thing away from this blog it should be this:

Sign your junior up for the February ACT and the March SAT before deciding which test they should focus on during the college admissions season.

After you get the results back from the February ACT and the March SAT you can compare the scores and if one score is higher than the other, focus on that test. If the SAT and ACT score come back and the scores are similar to one another, ask your student which test they prefer. The test they prefer will be the test they take in their junior/senior year.

The only time I recommend a student switch back and forth between SAT and ACT is when they are attempting to qualify for eligibility for the NCAA or if they get burnt out or keep scoring the same score on one particular test. When possible, choose a test and stick with it. Do not switch back and forth and lose momentum.

If you have any questions feel free to email using the contact form or send me a question on twitter, @jennthetutor. Keep checking back to see more college admissions tips and sign up for the newsletter if you are interested in being alerted when these blogs get posted and to get more SAT and ACT tips directly to your mailbox.