New SAT-ACT concordance tables

The College Board and ACT have jointly announced new concordance tables for their respective exams. For those of you not familiar with concordance tables, it is a way to approximate a score on one test with a score on the other test.

You will note that there are actually two concordance tables, one for comparing the ACT composite score with the SAT Critical Reading and Math score. There is a separate concordance table for comparing the ACT combined English/Writing score with the SAT Writing score. Here is a quote from the College Board on how to work conversions:

“From ACT to SAT:

The ACT Composite score does not contain the ACT Writing Test score. For this reason, you will get the most accurate estimates if you use the tables as follows:

• For students who do not take the optional ACT Writing test:
  • use Table 1 to concord an ACT Composite score to SAT (CR+M) score on the 400-1600 scale
• For students who take the ACT Plus Writing:
  • use Table 1 to concord from the ACT Composite (which does not include ACT Writing) score to SAT (CR+M) score; use Table 2 to concord from ACT Combined English/Writing score to SAT Writing score; then simply add SAT (CR+M) concorded scores and SAT (W) concorded scores to get to the SAT 600-2400 scale

From SAT to ACT:

• Add the SAT Critical Reading and Mathematics scores together; Use Table 1 to concord from the SAT (CR+M) score to the ACT Composite score; use Table 2 to concord from SAT Writing score to the ACT English/Writing score”

I always encourage the students that I work with to take practice exams of both the SAT and ACT to see on which test they have the better score. Having an updated concordance table will help all students to compare their respective scores to see on which test they perform the best. Once you know which is your better test, focus on that exam for your practice sessions.