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This is an oft-asked question in examland amongst both frenzied students and parents. The SAT changed its skin this year after 10 years of students the world over endeavouring to attain that perfect 2400 –and there were quite a few who did some arguably by more nefarious means. So what does the new SAT look like?
Well there are definitely uncanny similarities with the sections of the ACT, who, by the bye, the SAT lost ground to over the last few years. The cynical among us will opine that it has to be that lowest common denominator: good ol’ money. Yes, that seems to be the bottom line, unfortunately. The SAT lost “customers” to ACT and has since changed tact.
Back to the new SAT: at the moment is somewhat of a blackbox in that there have only been 3 sittings and no one is really sure about how to interpret the scores, which are now out of 1600, as with the SAT up till 2005. Universities are tacitly wary of the overhaul and are therefore cautious about their indicative entry requirements.
In the meantime, the ACT test seems to be the better choice though many are opting to do both – if you happen to score much higher in one of the two tests then you simply submit those scores and dump the other score.
We at AGF Tutoring are advising all our students to concentrate on the ACT test though, simultaneously, we are encouraging them to look at the new SAT, with a view to sitting it in addition to the ACT.
Universities are very well clued in to these changes and, of course, are looking for lots more apart from good ACT and/or SAT scores: they want to see SAT Subject Tests, APs, GCE A-levels, IB scores and so on as well as a healthy dose of extracurricular activities. So in short, stick with the ACT for now but do think about sitting the new SAT as an alternative – you never know, you may be more suited to it.
