SAT once again most widely used college admission test
The SAT has vaulted past the rival ACT to reclaim its long-held position as the nation’s most widely used college admission test, according to data provided Tuesday to The Washington Post.
Nearly 2 million U.S. students in the Class of 2018 took the SAT during high school, compared with 1.91 million who took the ACT. A surge in delivery of the SAT on school days helped fuel the switch.
Counting international students, 2.1 million students who graduated from high school this year took the SAT. That was up more than 20 percent from the previous year’s global total of 1.7 million.
The ACT had been the overall leader since 2012. But the College Board, which owns the SAT, pushed to expand its market share in recent years by revising the test and entering into deals with numerous states and school systems to give students the exam. New contracts with Colorado and Illinois, College Board data show, were instrumental in the SAT’s growth.
There are stylistic and substantive variations between the tests. The ACT includes a science section, and the SAT doesn’t. A perfect score on the ACT is 36. On the SAT, it’s 1600. But those differences may not matter much for most students.
Both exams claim to be aligned with the school curriculum. Both are about three hours long, not counting breaks and an optional essay. Both focus on math, reading and writing. Colleges will accept a score from either.
David Coleman, president of the College Board, said the test’s growth validated the decision to launch a new version in 2016 with less of the tricky vocabulary that was long a hallmark of the SAT. The new version also dropped the “guessing penalty,” a feature that deducted points for wrong answers.
“It was essential for the College Board’s mission that the new SAT was seen as more straightforward and approachable,” Coleman said. Too often, he said, the older version was seen “narrowly as a test for advanced kids.”
Even as the SAT has grown, the College Board has drawn criticism this year over its centerpiece test.
In July, many students and parents erupted when they received math scores from the June SAT. It turned out that version was somewhat easier than previous exams. That affected the distribution of scores because the SAT is effectively graded on a curve. A few wrong answers can lead to a lower score on an easier test than on a harder one. The College Board said the scoring process, known as equating, “ensures fairness for all students.”
In August, a version of the SAT was given in the United States that some observers said included questions previously seen in Asia. The father of a U.S. student filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of those who took the August test, alleging that the College Board had allowed a security breach that put many at a disadvantage. The College Board said it has significantly bolstered test security in recent years and will cancel scores for anyone found to have cheated. Coleman, in a telephone interview, declined to comment further on those controversies.
The SAT, first administered in 1926, was long the preeminent admission test. The ACT launched in 1959 as an alternative to measure student achievement. ACT officials declined to comment on recent SAT gains.
“We’re not focused on competition,” ACT spokesman Ed Colby said. “We’re focused on serving as many students as we can and on our mission.”
Within the past decade, the testing landscape has evolved rapidly as many states have opted to pay the ACT or College Board to deliver exams during school hours. Students can take those versions free of charge, where available, or they can pay to take the tests on the weekends.