The ACT: A Great Alternative to the SAT

Recently, headlines in the world of college admissions have focused on the resurgence of standardized testing requirements at leading universities in the USA. While Georgetown, the University of Florida, MIT, and Georgia Tech had required that students submit standardized test scores for the previous application season, these universities have been recently joined by a new host of top US universities requiring them for the upcoming application cycle, as well. Caltech, Dartmouth, Yale, Brown and - most recently - Harvard have reintroduced the requirement to submit SAT or ACT scores for admission. They are sure to be joined by an increasing number of other elite institutions of higher learning in the months ahead. While the SAT has traditionally dominated college standardized testing admission discussions, did you know that it is not the only option - and perhaps may not be the best one?

The ACT vs SAT

The ACT is a standardized university entrance exam and an alternative to the SAT that is accepted by all US colleges and universities, as well as over 200 foreign institutions. Universities use these standardized tests to predict their applicants’ future academic success, provide honest insight into their aptitude and academic achievement, and assess “how skillfully students solve problems, grasp implied meanings, draw inferences, evaluate ideas, and make judgments.” The exam is over 60 years old and is offered internationally seven times a year through a computer based test (which is not adaptive like the SAT, so all students sit exactly the same exam).

The writer is the Founder and CEO of Hale Education Group