Do You Need to Take the SAT and ACT?

I have said before that you don’t need to take both the SAT and the ACT. Pick the one that you do better on and focus on that test.

However, there is some new evidence that may call this into question. Kaplan, the test prep company, surveyed 500 of the highest ranking colleges, and 18% of the respondents said that a student would have an advantage is they submitted scores from the SAT and ACT if both were strong.

Now I will admit that the skeptic in me wonders if this isn’t just a way for Kaplan to get more business since people will now want to do test prep for both tests.  But, I don’t think that they are lying when they say that 18% of colleges would like to see both.

For now, I still believe that most students are better off focusing on one test or the other and spending the rest of their time studying, volunteering or engaging in extracurriculars. But if you are one of those people that just naturally does well on standardized tests, maybe taking both the SAT and ACT isn’t a bad idea.