How the ACT caught up with the SAT

09-23-2010

Guest Blog by Bob Schaeffer/Washington Post

For more than 80 years, the SAT has been the nation’s dominant, standardized college admissions exam. This year – for the first time – as many students in the high school class of 2010 sat for the rival ACT as took the SAT. Twenty years ago, the SAT was the common rite of passage for students from across the nation competing for seats at the most competitive institutions. The ACT was largely confined to the South, Midwest, Southwest and Mountain states, where it was often used for admission to public universities. Fewer than 75% as many students took the ACT as the SAT. Two decades later almost exactly the same number of students – slightly more than 1.5 million in the 2010 high school graduating class-- took each test. (more…)

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