Friday, December 19, 2014

How to Compare SAT and ACT Scores

All colleges and universities that require standardized test scores for undergraduate admission will accept students’ scores on either the SAT or ACT.  Many students want to submit their best results, but because these two tests are graded on a different scale, they don’t know how to compare scores.  Understanding how to compare SAT and ACT scores can help students focus on their best test and know which scores to send to colleges.

SAT Scoring
Each of the three SAT sections is graded on a scale of 200 to 800.  The three scores are not averaged to obtain a total score; although students and colleges often add scores together, resulting in a total of 1600 (math and reading) or 2400 (when all sections are totaled).  The average score per section is right around 500.

ACT Scoring
The ACT is scored on a scale of 1 to 36.  Each of the four sections is scored on the 1 to 36 scale, then all four scores are averaged to determine a student’s composite score.   Consider a student who earns the following results:
English 23
Math 36
Reading 22
Science 15
This student’s ACT composite score is 24.  Averaging helps the 15 in science, but in doing so reduces the perfect score in math. The average score on the ACT is 21.

No comments:

Post a Comment