Is Taking the ACT Worth It?

[NakaNaka]

I missed the late registration deadline for the ACT for the June exam, in three weeks. I was thinking I would go standby and study from now until then. I got a 1380 on the SAT, pretty good but not enough to push me over the top to get me into my top choice (Northwestern). I looked at some of the sample problems on the ACT website and they didn't seem too bad at all.

What are all your thoughts on the ACT?

 

[PHiuR]

same here, i forgot to sign up and im wondering if i should go standby or not...

 

[FoBoT]

things might have changed, but when i got out of high school, the only reason to take the ACT is if you were applying to a college that required it, otherwise, just the SAT was good enough

back then, only some colleges out west required the ACT, maybe things are different now (this was 20 years ago )

 

[MacBaine]

All of the colleges (2) that I applied to accepted both. I'd take it, cause you may do better than the SAT

 

[monk3y]

Originally posted by: MacBaine
All of the colleges (2) that I applied to accepted both. I'd take it, cause you may do better than the SAT

He has a point. If you do absolutely amazing on the ACT. It definately can't hurt you, and if you do equaly as well as you did on the SAT your in good shape.

 

[mkool]

my ACT composite was over 100 points higher than my SAT score, and I ended up using it to get into a very good school. My SAT was already decent, but the ACT was even higher.

 

[duragezic]

Just look at the colleges you are interested in and see what they require for admission and scholarships. My high school has said that most east coast and west coast colleges required SAT while the Midwest and stuff usually require ACT. My high school required it for scholarships and so do all the colleges around here so I took it in the winter. Never took the SAT, sounds like it is harder than the ACT.

 

[HomerSapien]

I would take it. If you score high enough on it, you do not have to take several classes, depending on your major. They were going to let me go straight into cal 2, but i never had a calculus class at that point and i figured i needed the practice. Got to skip the annoying college algebras, precal and trig.

 

[nater]

I didn't take it, and got into all the schools I applied to (Macalester, Kenyon, Grinnell, Wabash, Purdue) Some schools do require it though, so you should check to make sure.

 

[LiLRiceBoi]

From my experience, it's easier than SAT. Just take it.

 

[johnjohn320]

Depends on where you want to go. For me the SAT wasn't important, just the ACT was.

 

[rubenswm]

definitely take it.

 

[anno]

if your SAT math is your high score, or if your scores are nearly equal, you'll probably do better on ACT, because it covers more math. if your verbal score is your best on SAT you're less likely to see an improvement. course, ymmv.. and ya got nothin' to lose except the registration fee.. take every shot you can!

anno

 

[Zugzwang152]

i got much much higher scores on most of the ACT areas, but a mid 20 score in science brought me down to a 29 average, which is roughly equivalent to my SAT score, which was a 1300.

 

[Conky]

I only took the ACT once when I was a junior in highschool and it was high enough to get a scholarship(tuition only, no books, no room/board) at the local State U. I think I should've taken it as a senior just to see how much higher I could have scored.

Take it and be sure to ask colleges if they have scholarship programs for certain scores. My highschool "college guidance" dummy didn't even know about this stuff.