If you’ve got a high schooler in the house, you know how overwhelming navigating the college admissions process can be. From figuring out how many schools to apply to in the first place (there are 3,000 four-year institutions out there!) to showcasing all of your applicant’s academic, athletic, and extracurricular strengths, to making sure your future college kid is ultra-prepared for the required standardized tests.
That last one can be especially confusing since there are lots of myths, misconceptions, and misinformation out there about whether students should be taking the SAT, the ACT, or both. We talked to the team at Private Prep, a national education services company that provides tutoring, test prep, and admissions counseling services to get the facts on the SAT vs the ACT.
When deciding between tests, the most important factor is a student’s strengths: Students with strong reading skills, a deep level of processing, and a natural ability to infer concepts are best suited for the SAT. It’s also the better choice for high-level students who tend to spend time overthinking questions since the ACT requires more speed. Those capable of maintaining focus and working quickly will likely do better on the ACT.
But students who struggle under time pressure can still do well on the ACT: They might find the ACT more challenging initially, but by learning proper pacing skills and calming techniques, they can learn to conquer the test.
Don’t spread your student’s attention too thin: It’s better to ace one test than do so-so on both. Since colleges will accept either test and the prep process can be a long and grueling one (but you knew that), it makes more sense to choose a single test to focus on in order to achieve better results and avoid burnout.
Just make sure you’re focusing on the right test: Services like Private Prep can help determine which test is the better fit from the start to make the most of both teen and parents’ time. That usually involves meeting with the family and having students take a full-length ACTand SAT diagnostics. Team members review the results to get a sense of strengths and weaknesses and make a recommendation as to which test they think the student will perform better on. Then it’s time to choose a major and a dorm! OK, not exactly, but it’ll be here before you know it ...
Visit Private Prep online or contact its North New Jersey partner, Jessica Gorlin, at jessica@privateprep.com for more information.
