The Latest in ACT and SAT Prep

As we approach the end of the school year and head into summer, it’s a great time to start thinking about the ACT and SAT. We continue to learn more about the upcoming changes to the ACT, and after a year-plus of digital SAT administration, we are seeing trends emerge on that exam, as well. Let’s dive in.

The “Enhanced” ACT

The June and July paper-pencil exams will be the last administrations of the “legacy” ACT that has been in place for decades.* After that, all students will take a new version of the ACT (the Enhanced ACT), which contains fewer questions and gives students more time per question. Here are some important features of that test and its administration:

*Any school that gives the ACT as part of school-day testing before next Spring will still administer the legacy ACT.

Optional Science section… kind of

Literally speaking, the ACT Science section on the Enhanced ACT is optional – students do not have to take it – and the Composite score for the Enhanced ACT will no longer include Science (only English, Math, and Reading). However, we still recommend that students take the ACT Science section. We expect most schools to continue to require Science scores, at least in the short term, and colleges and science-related programs may even add the Science score back into their Composite score calculations as they make admissions decisions. We will be preparing our ACT students for the Science section as we have done in the past.

Paper-pencil or digital

The ACT remains a traditional, “linear” exam, but it has added a digital option. The paper-pencil and digital versions have the same structure, so we are recommending that students stick with the typical paper-pencil version for now; staring at a computer for three hours isn’t easy, and there may be glitches in the early digital administrations. There has also been limited availability for the digital version of the Enhanced ACT locally, at least so far.

Superscoring across ACTs

One concern that we’ve heard from families relates to the way the ACT is handling superscoring. A superscore combines the best individual sections from multiple exams to create a new, more favorable Composite score. Here’s an example:

In its official score reports, the ACT will not superscore across the legacy and enhanced versions of the test – as soon as a student takes an Enhanced ACT, their official ACT superscore will no longer include sections from the legacy version. But colleges can still do whatever they want with superscores; they are not limited by the ACT’s decisions. (In fact, the ACT didn’t even include superscores in its score reports until recently.) Some colleges may superscore across all exams a student has taken; others may include Science. A college counselor can be really helpful in navigating the schools’ varying (and changing) requirements. We can help!

Scoring and scaling

The ACT is shortening its English, Math, and Reading sections, and is also including several experimental “field test” items within each section. A test with fewer questions is likely to have wider variations in scores, as there are fewer correct answers for every scale score point and thus less forgiveness for missing a question. Here is an example from the upper end of the English section, comparing one of the newly-released Enhanced ACT practice tests to a legacy version:

Because of these potential variations in scores, we are recommending that most students (aside from rising seniors and high-scorers) hold off on taking an official Enhanced ACT until at least December – we want to see more scoring data first.

The SAT

Given all of the changes and short-term uncertainty with the ACT, the SAT may be a more attractive option for rising juniors. Much of the content and strategies we teach are similar between the two tests – the biggest differences are structural. 

When the College Board decided to make its own big changes to the SAT a couple of years ago, it made the test entirely digital, with no paper-pencil option. The SAT is also adaptive by section: all students start with a Reading/Writing section that contains questions of varying difficulty, and depending on their performance, they move to an easier or harder second “module.” They then repeat the process with Math. Only students who end up in the harder second module on each section can get the maximum scores.

In addition, the SAT is about 30 minutes shorter than the Enhanced ACT with Science:

On the content side, we do continue to see that different Math concepts are emphasized on each test. The ACT tends to prefer breadth of knowledge over depth (and includes more geometry, for example), while the SAT is more algebra-focused and goes deeper into a smaller number of concepts.

The State of Test-Optional Policies

During the worst of the pandemic, colleges had to put test-optional policies in place, as students often simply could not find an in-person testing site. Over the last couple of years, though, more schools have started to require tests again – the trend broadly started in the Southeast, moved to the Ivy League schools, and now schools closer to our neighborhood (Purdue, Ohio State) require test scores. Further, many other universities that are nominally test-optional also have started putting out language that submitting scores is “recommended” or “encouraged.” Regardless of stated or unstated policies, our position remains the same: taking the SAT or ACT gives students options and flexibility. It is useful for students to have a test score in their pocket in case they need it, and test scores can help with more than just college admission – even if a college doesn’t require test scores, a school or program (such as a business school) might, and some schools even provide incentives for high standardized test scores, such as in-state tuition for out-of-state students. Test scores may also be helpful in securing scholarships.

Bottom line

The upcoming 2025-26 school year presents even more challenges than the normal year for high schoolers. They will need to decide between a recently-retooled but more-established SAT and a new version of the ACT that may still be working out some kinks. In addition to following the latest standardized testing news, we closely monitor our students’ performance on practice tests and their test-taking preferences so that we can provide the most successful (and hopefully, enjoyable!) experience for your child. 

This is a great time of the year for rising juniors to get started. Please reach out to us if you would like to learn more about our test prep!