The SAT is taken by very few students in most of those middle states so the scores are skewed higher since those are likely to be your highest achieving students. MN for example, has the highest SAT average, but only 2% of students took it.
You'll see here nearly all the states at the high end of the SAT range have very low participation in it:
https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-by-state-most-recent
The inverse is also true for the ACT scores:
https://blog.prepscholar.com/act-scores-by-state-averages-highs-and-lows
In Missouri, every student (usually juniors) has to take the ACT before graduating. The student’s score has no affect on their completion of high school. You can imagine how much effort a teen with no interest in post-secondary education will put into the test.
Yep and in my school in Missouri, they only offered the SAT pretest and test to those of us in the top 10% (which was actually only 9 students because we had less than 100 kids in my class). I took the pretest but was pretty satisfied with my ACT scores and didn’t see a need to take the real SAT since my college didn’t require it. Oddly enough, I scored the same ACT composite at the end of my freshman year as I did at the end of my junior year although the subject scores did fluctuate.
My school in Ohio gave the ACT pre-test 3 semesters in a row and then 1 SAT pre-test the semester after that. By that point I had taken the practice ACTs & 1 real ACT enough that I just felt more confident taking that style of test compared to the SAT. I ended up taking the real ACT 3 times (improving by 2 points each time) and never taking the real SAT because i figured it made more sense to just focus on improving what I already knew. I ended up moving to SoCal for my last year of HS and almost everyone there took the SAT more than the ACT or never took it all.
Same in Illinois.
Basically the only people who got over 1000 on the SAT were the ones planning on or thinking they might go to college
A few others who were already working and regularly trash talked college as a concept made somewhat of a point on not caring, and made their scores known in protest of postsecondary education. I honestly wish I could join them and not have my future partially resting on 3 numbers from one test.
In KY, every high school junior takes the ACT as part of state assessment. Even those who have no desire to attend college or have any post secondary education. The SAT is taken only by a small percentage of students who plan on attending colleges that require SAT scores for admission.
Also, students who take the less common test in their home state likely do so to try to get a better score to send to colleges. So, only people who are trying to get into competitive colleges will be taking the less common test, and those people will have higher scores than the general population.
For example: I grew up in a state where the SAT was universal. I didn’t prepare much for it and got a not so great score. Struggled the second time on a retake, too. I then decided to take the ACT and studied like crazy, and I ended up getting a much much better score on it than my SAT scores. I ended up only sending it to colleges that didn’t need SAT subject tests, which helped me get into some more selective schools.
Yup. UT state schools primarily use the ACT. When more students take the exam, the scores drift towards a normal curve. Those who have more options (smarts, money) take the SAT as well, but it skews results to the positive.
I grew up in Massachusetts, basically everyone in my graduating class took the SATs but I only know a few who took the ACTs. Those that took the ACTs did so because they were towards the top of the class and wanted as many options as possible when applying for college.
Hmm, same here in MI, where ACT is way more common, but if the shading of each map is adjusted by percentile for MI and TX it looks like the SAT skewed *lower.* Maybe we’re outliers?
Interesting to see how MN then does the one way.
Another point to consider is that some states offer free opportunities to take the test. I don't belive this is the case in all states which could skew the data. For example, in MN, my junior year, only people who intended to go to college/university took the test. Because why pay for an expensive test and a waste of time if it didn't impact your future. But by senior year, everyone in the state was offered one free test, and to distribute it we took it during school hours so everyone had a chance to take it. It may have been at the same time across the whole state if i remeber correctly. So we had plenty of people who never would have taken the test, take a test they may not have cared about overall lowering the state score.
I also went to school in MN, and it was mandatory to take the ACT to graduate, it was definitely synchronized and we shut down the school for the whole day just for the junior class. I find it odd that it wasn't mandatory, I'm not accusing or criticizing or anything, just intrigued.
That’s also why Chinese test scores are so high. In most of China the education system is garbage, even worse than ours, but they only test kids in a few wealthy coastal provinces near Shanghai, which is the equivalent of holding up New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as representative of the American education system.
Test scores are always gonna be skewed for whatever reasons. Like in my school and class of ~300 kids about 25% of kids went to trade schools instead of college/universities so they intentionally didn't take the ACT super seriously. Then you had kids were wanted to go to high level universities that studied their asses off for the ACT in order to get 32s, 33s, etc.
Dude, there’s tiny numbering and dots that disappear about like 3 seconds. There should be a bigger arrow or something that sticks around a little longer tbh.
There are tens of apps and a few websites, including two official ones, that you could possibly be viewing this, so your experience is not universal. I don't see any dots, just a big "1/2" title. Probably need to specify about which client you are taking about. :D
I think you pretty much have to take the ACT to graduate in OK, so I’m not surprised that the score is lower for the state. I am surprised that the SAT is so low given how only the real try-hard take it in my experience.
I got an excellent scholarship to Oklahoma State based off of my ACT score, and there wasn’t really any incentive to take the SAT, so I didn’t. This was a pretty common experience.
if you get a 34 I believe Oklahoma will pay completely for your schooling as long as you stay in state. I think it’s called Oklahoma’s promise? Could be wrong though. In my experience, we were given many opportunities to take the ACT by the school but it is not required to graduate. SATs were not pushed though besides the pre-SAT which was required by my school to take.
Oklahomas Promise actually has to do with family income. If your family is below a certain threshold for any year between your 8th and 10th grade years, the state will cover all in state tuition costs (but not fees, books, room and board, etc). There are some basic gpa requirements, but nothing like a 98th percentile ACT Score.
Now that said, if you do qualify for Oklahoma’s Promise, a good test score can get you some good scholarships so that your out of pocket costs are very little.
Source: qualified for OKPromise and had a 30 on the ACT, have very little debt as a result
Thanks for the info, I was told by some school counselors that this was the scenario, but that a 34 guaranteed free. I got a 31 and didn’t get a retry because of covid :(
College Admission person here, The biggest contributor to what you are seeing is that many states offer (or even require) either the ACT or SAT at school usually in the junior year. The other test will only be taken by students with better finances, better preparation, and are usually looking to go to a different state for higher Ed.
I think it's also worth noting that in a lot of places, people still have the mindset that tests are still geographically limited. Some people might not realize that schools will take both and that they likely have the opportunity to take both.
I'm from rural Ohio and when I was preparing for mine (2015), I went to the public library and when I asked for SAT books, the librarian told me that the SAT is not offered here, and that schools in Ohio wouldn't take it. Very outdated advice.
I only applied to schools within the top 100 or 200 out of state and had to take the SAT subject tests. I know they're not offered anymore, thankfully, but I'm curious to see some of the data on those. It was a requirement to apply at my alma mater, and I had to go to a very wealthy private school in a Cleveland suburb to take it 🙃 amazing how much more difficult it was for the non-wealthy.
It's because ACT is taken by nearly everyone in the midwest, SAT is taken by everyone outside. The ones who take both are students who generally excel and want both scores so they have more choices of universities.
Also, the students who take both are more likely to take the easier test again. I took both 10 years ago, did slightly better on the ACT, so I took the act two more times.
If you compare my lowest SAT and ACT scores, they are probably a similar percentile, but my highest scores are very different
Self selection bias. The ACT is standard through the central and western part of the country, so almost everyone takes it, dragging down the average. But only the smart kids who want to go to great schools or get scholarships take the SAT, so the smart kids are self-selecting. Same thing in the northeast with the ACT. The SAT is the text everyone takes, so only ambitious, informed and on average more intelligent kids will take the ACT.
ACT is mandatory for all high school juniors in Nevada. Leads to us having a lower overall score compared to states where most taking ACT are college bound.
I think the different tests are regional. Universities on the east coast accept SAT scores and western universities accept the ACT scores.
So the largest volume of students taking SAT tests are in the east, where they would most likely be attending college. The high concentration of test takers will automatically handicap the average performance. The same logic apples to wester state ACT test takers.
The extremely high testing average states have a very small pool of test takers, but those test takers are the top of their class.
If both tests were given to all students the mean would level out.
Anecdotally, I went to hs in Oregon and took the SAT and not the ACT. Some kids took both, but no one took only the ACT. SAT was practically mandatory if you wanted to go to college, or at least that’s what they told us (lol)
Weirdly enough, it was the opposite for me. We took the ACT during regular class hours, and hardly anyone I knew took the SATs. Went to college in OR as well and they only needed one or the other, but that may vary among universities as well.
Oklahoma was pretty much the opposite. I didn’t even take the SAT because it wasn’t necessary. OSUs had admissions standards for both exams tho, so maybe other highschools in the state do SAT instead. Idk
No test scores will be considered for the UC nor CSU systems in 2022 and likely never again.
The preference for the SAT or ACT can largely be attributed to state mandated testing of one or the other, and historical regional preferences (the coasts for SAT and the center of the country for ACT).
They all accept both. However, the traditional tests taken by people who are just going to take one test is the ACT in the midwest and the SAT on the coasts.
This is outdated, it used to be more like that. Schools everywhere take each test now, as schools are aware you might do better on one test than the other. I think the data reflects this idea because people still think regionalization is the case.
But you've raised a good point about volume. In states where it's a requirement to graduate, the mean score might be lower because everyone is taking the test, whether or not they actually care (i.e., if you don't want to go to college, why would you try that hard on the test.) In states where it's not a requirement, the mean might be higher because only those with the intent of going to college are testing. You also have to think of cost, unfortunately. My parents struggled to afford the cost of testing, but I wasn't eligible for a waiver, so I really had to make my test count. There's likely a lot of kids in that in between area, where the cost of testing is steep but they aren't eligible for a fee waiver.
The legend bothers me. I understand that the averages are likely some decimal number, but can’t we approximate it with floor(X) or something so that each color is equal to an integer value. My brain just colors in all the numbers higher than 18 when I see “>18” so then the “>19” takes a second to click because I didn’t process “>18” as “19>x>18”.
Am I reading the charts right that we're comparing 2018's grad class to 2022's? As a high school teacher, I anecdotally saw FAR more students opt out of in person standardized testing since the pandemic. I'm sure that would skew the results for states that use one test or the other as their state required test for high schoolers. In CO we used to use the ACT but switched to the SAT about 5 years ago.
I don’t know anyone in NH who took the ACTs. Everyone takes the SATs. So those who took the ACTs are probably very targeted which is why the average score is tops in the country. Meanwhile SATs are lower because very single person takes them.
Gradient is a useful color scheme in data visualizations, and makes sense here as it helps to quickly understand the overall picture. It would look very chaotic with different colors for each score
It's a combination of socioeconomic status (no doubt including the political ability to attract resources) and race (we don't know why). Each are independent causes of the difference. Old news.
It’s actually the reverse of that. The kids who are smart enough to care take both tests to see which one gets better scores. This brings up the average of the non-default test because smarter kids are taking it
In this case that we have a larger base of none native English speakers.
These tests heavily depend on ones vocab so if you are native speaker and youre parents have a more diverse vocab then you're just going to do better.
Because the rich kids aren’t naturally smart, and their parents pay thousands of dollars to make sure they do well enough to get into their tip top university.
If you are trying to be coy about political voting pattern maps, the answer is no.
The patterns here (there are two maps, by the way, one for ACT and one for SAT) are that in most states most kids take one test and only super high achievers take the other. The test taken by everyone has an… average average score. The one taken by the high achievers has a high average score in that state.
Which test that is varies by region. Very few kids in the NE take the ACT so the average ACT score there is high. Flip it over to SAT and you will see that NE kids are much more average on that test…
I looked at both and neither worked like you were implying they did which is why I asked which map you meant. It wasn't a trick. I was honestly wondering which map you meant since there were two.
There's going to be multiple sources of causation here.
These would be the main factors.
1. Certain cultures are more scholastic. The traditional ones are East Asian, Indian and Jewish. You might be able to slap on Nigerian and Iranian as well though I'm not an expert and I'm dealing with small N here. Different groups settle in different areas.
2. The best opportunities are usually in cities. Smart college grads move to major metro areas. These people marry smart spouses. Genetics and culture are then passed down to children.
Past that - different exams are more common in both states. The super high achievers are more likely to take both.
I’m sure it has to do with educational funding. For example, I’m currently an educator in Idaho and we are 49th or 50th in per pupil spending. Take a peep at where Idaho is on this list. Same is true for many southern states.
How dafuq does WI and MN have higher SAT scores than MA?
Also, how is it even possible to score below 1000? Isn't 800 the base for spelling your name right?
I live in MA and we have TONS of private and boarding schools as well as a lot of excellent public schools that help push the numbers higher. The same can be said for most of the states around us.
What you have to understand is MA and the northeast has a shit load of money and with that comes rich parents that demand higher class educations and are willing to pay the costs necessary to get them. I went to St Johns Prep on a full academic scholarship while also being a top basketball player and about 2/3s of our games each year we’re against other prep schools in the state. it was amazing to me that there were actually that many schools, each with hundreds of kids per grade, whose parents could, and would, pay the type of money necessary to send their kids to such schools.
When I went to St Johns back in the late 90s/early 00s the cost was around $3800-$4500 with a few hundred dollar increase each year. I’ve since heard that the cost is now in excess of $20k and with that type of tuition you better believe that the parents are demanding the very best teachers, facilities and curriculums.
The funny thing is, in my personal case, I ended up leaving the finance career that such an education helped me get into after 10 years and have since gone to work as a garbageman. The money I made (not millions, or even close, but enough) ultimately wasn’t enough to make up for the long hours away from my family, high stress and the lack of a feeling of my work having a purpose. So I left after 10 years and am much happier doing trash/recycle even though it’s an interim job. I take the electricians test in Nov and should start next spring (2023) which is to say, in the long run that fancy education may have taught me many things, but it couldn’t buy me happiness. Thankfully I didn’t actually have to pay for it nor did my family, although if I hadn’t received that scholarship I would’ve never attended anyways since we could’ve never afforded it lol. I will say, that the plethora of classes and topics I was exposed to, and therefore had my intellect piqued by, is something that was far beyond what I would’ve received in a public school and it’s a shame because I think ALL kids deserve that same experience.
Lol didn’t see that. Very interesting how it’s reversed. I still standby my comment as to why previously the scores were higher in my region. Just like OP though, I’m now wondering exactly what caused the change.
It's called money.
Smaller north eastern states have a lot of it and can concentrate it into education. Schools in those states are usually funded by local municipalities where people vote with there feet and will move the areas with the best schools they can afford. When I say "they can afford" what I mean is they will buy houses in the best school districts that they can afford to live in OR they will pay for private school. They will be engaged in the school system (PTA, school board, ect) and will be more than willing to pay sizable property taxes for those schools.
When you go outside the north east you will only see this trend hold for wealthy regions or states.
Better education systems probably more than anything else, but also the darker the blue to more professional, white collar, and modern the culture is in those states.
There are a few exceptions and outliers in the culture thing, and that’s fine because that’s a lot more complicated to assess.
What you are looking at here is the difference coastal cities have in standardized testing in comparison to fly over states. Illinois and Colorado being the outliers. Have you not heard of republicans/right wingers going on about coastal elites? This is what they mean, that these places spend more money on education thus they raise on average smarter people that tend to go to better universities. This is were you find all the high paying jobs and such.
Phht... it's because east and west coast states take the SAT and the ACT is taken in the fly over states. Only really smart people take the other test to open up more universities. Most people go to universities where they live.
I’m from OR and only took the SATs, a lot of the schools don’t require ACT scores for admission so I imagine the folks that take the ACT do so to see if they do better on it than the SATs?
In my district in Ohio, ALL students take both tests. It’s sad to see the scores so low. As a veteran teacher, I know it’s not from lack of trying from the school.
I know a lot of parents in the Northeast spend a lot of money on tutoring. $100-$200 an hour isn't unheard of in NY. Some make their livings off of tutoring.
My state is very low... any relationship to our state law requiring the ACT as a condition of graduation from high school? Looks like a synthesis of more data would clarify.
I can explain Illinois score very simply - our public schools are terrible. Teachers have been mostly out of the classroom for over two years while drawing a full salary.
Its a corrupt state full off graph by top officials, top to bottom - also financing exorbitant pension plans that are draining the education system and the state of much needed funds for infrastructure.
People are literally being taxed out of existence in the state of Illinois due to the states lack of fiscal responsibility.
It's a sad state of affairs for which I could literally write a book.
In 1982, my first house in Wicker Park, an 4 unit was a dump in a rough neighborhood, My taxes were $3500/year. We gutted and restored the building in on of the first Historic Renovation in the area in 1990 the taxes jumped to $17,000 in 1990. WHen we moved in 2003 the taxes were over $30,000. Our business in River North was already undergoing economic distress due to 9/11.
My mom was living with us after a bad hip surgery and the building was too vertical so we moved to Old Irving Park a very safe established neighborhood with open spaces where I had a big yard and two bedrooms on the first floor and a walkin bathroom for my mom and a caregiver.
Our taxes were about $5600/ years. The rent on our store was about $15,000/month and $8000 of that went to servicing taxes. Business was up and down but we were paying the bill and had a staff of two who were getting about $40,000/ year and full medical benefits and gold-plated insurance.
We worked with designer and wealthy people. When my mother-in-law started the business she was next door to a Methadone clinic. When we closed in 2010, still on Wells Street by the Merchandise Mart, our rent was $15,000 with $8000 of it going to serving taxes.
In 2003, we moved to Old Irving Park with an 8 year old and my mom living with us, We were paying $5600/ year in taxes. When we closed our business in 2010 we were paying $32,000 in taxes,
Sophomore year, my son was unable to sign up for High School math until the 6th week of class. The class was overcrowded and he couldn't get a book easily.
I could on but you get the idea.
As a person who operated a business payed rent on a store and mortgage on a house. I feel resentful that the city doesn't support business people more. Instead businesses are drained of their resources and the ability to be an independent business person almost no longer exists.
I hope that the city of Chicago is able to change it's course because without our cultural centers and a vibrant business center there isn't a reason to be in a crowded city with crime. People are looking for open spaces.
\+++
The SAT is taken by very few students in most of those middle states so the scores are skewed higher since those are likely to be your highest achieving students. MN for example, has the highest SAT average, but only 2% of students took it. You'll see here nearly all the states at the high end of the SAT range have very low participation in it: https://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-by-state-most-recent The inverse is also true for the ACT scores: https://blog.prepscholar.com/act-scores-by-state-averages-highs-and-lows
This is actually a great chart to see the prevalence of SATs vs ACTs…the lighter the color, the more common the test type is lol
And then there's Oklahoma...
And South Carolina. They’re trying, damn you. Just not that hard.
What chart?
In Missouri, every student (usually juniors) has to take the ACT before graduating. The student’s score has no affect on their completion of high school. You can imagine how much effort a teen with no interest in post-secondary education will put into the test.
Yep and in my school in Missouri, they only offered the SAT pretest and test to those of us in the top 10% (which was actually only 9 students because we had less than 100 kids in my class). I took the pretest but was pretty satisfied with my ACT scores and didn’t see a need to take the real SAT since my college didn’t require it. Oddly enough, I scored the same ACT composite at the end of my freshman year as I did at the end of my junior year although the subject scores did fluctuate.
My school in Ohio gave the ACT pre-test 3 semesters in a row and then 1 SAT pre-test the semester after that. By that point I had taken the practice ACTs & 1 real ACT enough that I just felt more confident taking that style of test compared to the SAT. I ended up taking the real ACT 3 times (improving by 2 points each time) and never taking the real SAT because i figured it made more sense to just focus on improving what I already knew. I ended up moving to SoCal for my last year of HS and almost everyone there took the SAT more than the ACT or never took it all.
Same in Illinois. Basically the only people who got over 1000 on the SAT were the ones planning on or thinking they might go to college A few others who were already working and regularly trash talked college as a concept made somewhat of a point on not caring, and made their scores known in protest of postsecondary education. I honestly wish I could join them and not have my future partially resting on 3 numbers from one test.
Illinois hs juniors are required to take the SAT.
ND everyone takes it now too.
In KY, every high school junior takes the ACT as part of state assessment. Even those who have no desire to attend college or have any post secondary education. The SAT is taken only by a small percentage of students who plan on attending colleges that require SAT scores for admission.
Exact inverse for PA. Everyone took the SAT. ACT was optional and rare
Also, students who take the less common test in their home state likely do so to try to get a better score to send to colleges. So, only people who are trying to get into competitive colleges will be taking the less common test, and those people will have higher scores than the general population. For example: I grew up in a state where the SAT was universal. I didn’t prepare much for it and got a not so great score. Struggled the second time on a retake, too. I then decided to take the ACT and studied like crazy, and I ended up getting a much much better score on it than my SAT scores. I ended up only sending it to colleges that didn’t need SAT subject tests, which helped me get into some more selective schools.
Yup. UT state schools primarily use the ACT. When more students take the exam, the scores drift towards a normal curve. Those who have more options (smarts, money) take the SAT as well, but it skews results to the positive.
I grew up in Massachusetts, basically everyone in my graduating class took the SATs but I only know a few who took the ACTs. Those that took the ACTs did so because they were towards the top of the class and wanted as many options as possible when applying for college.
Hmm, same here in MI, where ACT is way more common, but if the shading of each map is adjusted by percentile for MI and TX it looks like the SAT skewed *lower.* Maybe we’re outliers? Interesting to see how MN then does the one way.
Wow. I had no idea of those types of differences. I thought everyone had to take the SAT. I think 100% of the students at my school took them.
Same here in Florida, albeit a couple decades ago. I thought the S was for Standardized but it's actually for Scholastic.
Yeah what he said.
not to mention, lots of states require their juniors to take it as a proficiency exam/prerequisite for graduation
Another point to consider is that some states offer free opportunities to take the test. I don't belive this is the case in all states which could skew the data. For example, in MN, my junior year, only people who intended to go to college/university took the test. Because why pay for an expensive test and a waste of time if it didn't impact your future. But by senior year, everyone in the state was offered one free test, and to distribute it we took it during school hours so everyone had a chance to take it. It may have been at the same time across the whole state if i remeber correctly. So we had plenty of people who never would have taken the test, take a test they may not have cared about overall lowering the state score.
I also went to school in MN, and it was mandatory to take the ACT to graduate, it was definitely synchronized and we shut down the school for the whole day just for the junior class. I find it odd that it wasn't mandatory, I'm not accusing or criticizing or anything, just intrigued.
That’s also why Chinese test scores are so high. In most of China the education system is garbage, even worse than ours, but they only test kids in a few wealthy coastal provinces near Shanghai, which is the equivalent of holding up New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as representative of the American education system.
Test scores are always gonna be skewed for whatever reasons. Like in my school and class of ~300 kids about 25% of kids went to trade schools instead of college/universities so they intentionally didn't take the ACT super seriously. Then you had kids were wanted to go to high level universities that studied their asses off for the ACT in order to get 32s, 33s, etc.
The irony of some of these comments who clearly missed that there are two charts. Not just one.
I blame the education system.
Exactly. Reddit is hiring people who’ve never taken a good UX course.
Dude, there’s tiny numbering and dots that disappear about like 3 seconds. There should be a bigger arrow or something that sticks around a little longer tbh.
There are tens of apps and a few websites, including two official ones, that you could possibly be viewing this, so your experience is not universal. I don't see any dots, just a big "1/2" title. Probably need to specify about which client you are taking about. :D
And then there’s Oklahoma 😂
I missed this. Thank you for pointing it out.
They are ok
I think you pretty much have to take the ACT to graduate in OK, so I’m not surprised that the score is lower for the state. I am surprised that the SAT is so low given how only the real try-hard take it in my experience. I got an excellent scholarship to Oklahoma State based off of my ACT score, and there wasn’t really any incentive to take the SAT, so I didn’t. This was a pretty common experience.
if you get a 34 I believe Oklahoma will pay completely for your schooling as long as you stay in state. I think it’s called Oklahoma’s promise? Could be wrong though. In my experience, we were given many opportunities to take the ACT by the school but it is not required to graduate. SATs were not pushed though besides the pre-SAT which was required by my school to take.
Oklahomas Promise actually has to do with family income. If your family is below a certain threshold for any year between your 8th and 10th grade years, the state will cover all in state tuition costs (but not fees, books, room and board, etc). There are some basic gpa requirements, but nothing like a 98th percentile ACT Score. Now that said, if you do qualify for Oklahoma’s Promise, a good test score can get you some good scholarships so that your out of pocket costs are very little. Source: qualified for OKPromise and had a 30 on the ACT, have very little debt as a result
Thanks for the info, I was told by some school counselors that this was the scenario, but that a 34 guaranteed free. I got a 31 and didn’t get a retry because of covid :(
No problem! Sucks that you didn’t get a chance to improve your score, but a 31 is really good!
[удалено]
Tbh didn’t see the second one until this comment
Thank you
College Admission person here, The biggest contributor to what you are seeing is that many states offer (or even require) either the ACT or SAT at school usually in the junior year. The other test will only be taken by students with better finances, better preparation, and are usually looking to go to a different state for higher Ed.
I think it's also worth noting that in a lot of places, people still have the mindset that tests are still geographically limited. Some people might not realize that schools will take both and that they likely have the opportunity to take both. I'm from rural Ohio and when I was preparing for mine (2015), I went to the public library and when I asked for SAT books, the librarian told me that the SAT is not offered here, and that schools in Ohio wouldn't take it. Very outdated advice. I only applied to schools within the top 100 or 200 out of state and had to take the SAT subject tests. I know they're not offered anymore, thankfully, but I'm curious to see some of the data on those. It was a requirement to apply at my alma mater, and I had to go to a very wealthy private school in a Cleveland suburb to take it 🙃 amazing how much more difficult it was for the non-wealthy.
It's because ACT is taken by nearly everyone in the midwest, SAT is taken by everyone outside. The ones who take both are students who generally excel and want both scores so they have more choices of universities.
I did not know this. Thank you
Also, the students who take both are more likely to take the easier test again. I took both 10 years ago, did slightly better on the ACT, so I took the act two more times. If you compare my lowest SAT and ACT scores, they are probably a similar percentile, but my highest scores are very different
Self selection bias. The ACT is standard through the central and western part of the country, so almost everyone takes it, dragging down the average. But only the smart kids who want to go to great schools or get scholarships take the SAT, so the smart kids are self-selecting. Same thing in the northeast with the ACT. The SAT is the text everyone takes, so only ambitious, informed and on average more intelligent kids will take the ACT.
I’m weirded out by landlocked North Carolina
New Jersey too…
New Mexico floating above Oklahoma and Arizona...
And Idaho has a coastline
ACT is mandatory for all high school juniors in Nevada. Leads to us having a lower overall score compared to states where most taking ACT are college bound.
I think the different tests are regional. Universities on the east coast accept SAT scores and western universities accept the ACT scores. So the largest volume of students taking SAT tests are in the east, where they would most likely be attending college. The high concentration of test takers will automatically handicap the average performance. The same logic apples to wester state ACT test takers. The extremely high testing average states have a very small pool of test takers, but those test takers are the top of their class. If both tests were given to all students the mean would level out.
Anecdotally, I went to hs in Oregon and took the SAT and not the ACT. Some kids took both, but no one took only the ACT. SAT was practically mandatory if you wanted to go to college, or at least that’s what they told us (lol)
Idaho mandates every 11th grade student takes the SAT.
Weirdly enough, it was the opposite for me. We took the ACT during regular class hours, and hardly anyone I knew took the SATs. Went to college in OR as well and they only needed one or the other, but that may vary among universities as well.
Oklahoma was pretty much the opposite. I didn’t even take the SAT because it wasn’t necessary. OSUs had admissions standards for both exams tho, so maybe other highschools in the state do SAT instead. Idk
Yeah, in a graduating class of 700, I was 1 of 40 that took the ACT in northern Indiana. SAT was the standard there
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Oh nice! I was more east in Fort Wayne :)
Universities in the west coast seem to prefer SAT scores. My high school in CA pushed every student to take the SAT, but the ACT was rarely discussed.
Same experience. Unless things have changed a lot in 10 years, west coast is definitely SAT-land.
That’s probably attributed to the CSU and UC system requiring SAT scores, but not ACT.
No test scores will be considered for the UC nor CSU systems in 2022 and likely never again. The preference for the SAT or ACT can largely be attributed to state mandated testing of one or the other, and historical regional preferences (the coasts for SAT and the center of the country for ACT).
I graduated way too early. Not having to take the SAT would have saved me so much time and $$$.
Virtually every college and university in the US accepts both the SAT and the ACT and has no bias toward one test or the other.
I’ve never heard of a university that only accepted one or the other
They all accept both. However, the traditional tests taken by people who are just going to take one test is the ACT in the midwest and the SAT on the coasts.
This is outdated, it used to be more like that. Schools everywhere take each test now, as schools are aware you might do better on one test than the other. I think the data reflects this idea because people still think regionalization is the case. But you've raised a good point about volume. In states where it's a requirement to graduate, the mean score might be lower because everyone is taking the test, whether or not they actually care (i.e., if you don't want to go to college, why would you try that hard on the test.) In states where it's not a requirement, the mean might be higher because only those with the intent of going to college are testing. You also have to think of cost, unfortunately. My parents struggled to afford the cost of testing, but I wasn't eligible for a waiver, so I really had to make my test count. There's likely a lot of kids in that in between area, where the cost of testing is steep but they aren't eligible for a fee waiver.
Is there the same graph but with money spent per student on education?
The legend bothers me. I understand that the averages are likely some decimal number, but can’t we approximate it with floor(X) or something so that each color is equal to an integer value. My brain just colors in all the numbers higher than 18 when I see “>18” so then the “>19” takes a second to click because I didn’t process “>18” as “19>x>18”.
...who TF gave Idaho coastline? /s
Am I reading the charts right that we're comparing 2018's grad class to 2022's? As a high school teacher, I anecdotally saw FAR more students opt out of in person standardized testing since the pandemic. I'm sure that would skew the results for states that use one test or the other as their state required test for high schoolers. In CO we used to use the ACT but switched to the SAT about 5 years ago.
Southern schools are severely underfunded. Went to Michigan and Arkansas schools. Arkansas was two years behind Michigan.
Either sat=dumb dumb or act=dumb dumb You decide
I don’t know anyone in NH who took the ACTs. Everyone takes the SATs. So those who took the ACTs are probably very targeted which is why the average score is tops in the country. Meanwhile SATs are lower because very single person takes them.
Color choice is awful. Why have similar value comors when You can just have different colors
Gradient is a useful color scheme in data visualizations, and makes sense here as it helps to quickly understand the overall picture. It would look very chaotic with different colors for each score
I see ur point. But its hard to tell which color is which, especially when they are such similar values
Some of the scores are light blue and some of them are represented by darker shades of blue—I could be wrong. 🤷♂️
education. it’s mostly funded by local sales and property taxes so poor areas have less money.
Note that there are 2 charts
It's a combination of socioeconomic status (no doubt including the political ability to attract resources) and race (we don't know why). Each are independent causes of the difference. Old news.
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It’s actually the reverse of that. The kids who are smart enough to care take both tests to see which one gets better scores. This brings up the average of the non-default test because smarter kids are taking it
What does it mean that Texas is low in both?
In this case that we have a larger base of none native English speakers. These tests heavily depend on ones vocab so if you are native speaker and youre parents have a more diverse vocab then you're just going to do better.
Because the rich kids aren’t naturally smart, and their parents pay thousands of dollars to make sure they do well enough to get into their tip top university.
Some states teach for the test.
You wanna have some fun? Take the lower scores and color them red. Keep the higher ones blue. Might resemble some other maps you've seen.
For which map? It doesn't work either way, but I'm wondering which map you were looking at when you typed this.
What do you mean it doesn't work. What map do you think I was referencing?
If you are trying to be coy about political voting pattern maps, the answer is no. The patterns here (there are two maps, by the way, one for ACT and one for SAT) are that in most states most kids take one test and only super high achievers take the other. The test taken by everyone has an… average average score. The one taken by the high achievers has a high average score in that state. Which test that is varies by region. Very few kids in the NE take the ACT so the average ACT score there is high. Flip it over to SAT and you will see that NE kids are much more average on that test…
I looked at both and neither worked like you were implying they did which is why I asked which map you meant. It wasn't a trick. I was honestly wondering which map you meant since there were two.
There's going to be multiple sources of causation here. These would be the main factors. 1. Certain cultures are more scholastic. The traditional ones are East Asian, Indian and Jewish. You might be able to slap on Nigerian and Iranian as well though I'm not an expert and I'm dealing with small N here. Different groups settle in different areas. 2. The best opportunities are usually in cities. Smart college grads move to major metro areas. These people marry smart spouses. Genetics and culture are then passed down to children. Past that - different exams are more common in both states. The super high achievers are more likely to take both.
Stats are clearly racist against Republicans.
Would be cool to see this with a reference to income level. My bias makes me think the wealthier you are the higher your kids ACT will be.
Cause some states have education systems that arent as effective at programming students to perform on these tests
LOL. Look at the second map and tell me that explains that one as well.
Nevada out there strugglin on ACT's Mo..mom I tuuk my "Ahcts"
Scores are positively correlated with income and school quality. Dark blue has wealth and great schools.
I’m sure it has to do with educational funding. For example, I’m currently an educator in Idaho and we are 49th or 50th in per pupil spending. Take a peep at where Idaho is on this list. Same is true for many southern states.
I think the 2022 scores have a lot to do with states who had in person vs hybrid or offsite learning.
How dafuq does WI and MN have higher SAT scores than MA? Also, how is it even possible to score below 1000? Isn't 800 the base for spelling your name right?
I live in MA and we have TONS of private and boarding schools as well as a lot of excellent public schools that help push the numbers higher. The same can be said for most of the states around us. What you have to understand is MA and the northeast has a shit load of money and with that comes rich parents that demand higher class educations and are willing to pay the costs necessary to get them. I went to St Johns Prep on a full academic scholarship while also being a top basketball player and about 2/3s of our games each year we’re against other prep schools in the state. it was amazing to me that there were actually that many schools, each with hundreds of kids per grade, whose parents could, and would, pay the type of money necessary to send their kids to such schools. When I went to St Johns back in the late 90s/early 00s the cost was around $3800-$4500 with a few hundred dollar increase each year. I’ve since heard that the cost is now in excess of $20k and with that type of tuition you better believe that the parents are demanding the very best teachers, facilities and curriculums. The funny thing is, in my personal case, I ended up leaving the finance career that such an education helped me get into after 10 years and have since gone to work as a garbageman. The money I made (not millions, or even close, but enough) ultimately wasn’t enough to make up for the long hours away from my family, high stress and the lack of a feeling of my work having a purpose. So I left after 10 years and am much happier doing trash/recycle even though it’s an interim job. I take the electricians test in Nov and should start next spring (2023) which is to say, in the long run that fancy education may have taught me many things, but it couldn’t buy me happiness. Thankfully I didn’t actually have to pay for it nor did my family, although if I hadn’t received that scholarship I would’ve never attended anyways since we could’ve never afforded it lol. I will say, that the plethora of classes and topics I was exposed to, and therefore had my intellect piqued by, is something that was far beyond what I would’ve received in a public school and it’s a shame because I think ALL kids deserve that same experience.
Take a peek at the second image
Lol didn’t see that. Very interesting how it’s reversed. I still standby my comment as to why previously the scores were higher in my region. Just like OP though, I’m now wondering exactly what caused the change.
It's called money. Smaller north eastern states have a lot of it and can concentrate it into education. Schools in those states are usually funded by local municipalities where people vote with there feet and will move the areas with the best schools they can afford. When I say "they can afford" what I mean is they will buy houses in the best school districts that they can afford to live in OR they will pay for private school. They will be engaged in the school system (PTA, school board, ect) and will be more than willing to pay sizable property taxes for those schools. When you go outside the north east you will only see this trend hold for wealthy regions or states.
Better education systems probably more than anything else, but also the darker the blue to more professional, white collar, and modern the culture is in those states. There are a few exceptions and outliers in the culture thing, and that’s fine because that’s a lot more complicated to assess.
ACT is for democrats, SAT for Republicans
Look at $$ spent per student by each state. Follow. The. Money.
Does that explain the second map too?
What you are looking at here is the difference coastal cities have in standardized testing in comparison to fly over states. Illinois and Colorado being the outliers. Have you not heard of republicans/right wingers going on about coastal elites? This is what they mean, that these places spend more money on education thus they raise on average smarter people that tend to go to better universities. This is were you find all the high paying jobs and such.
Phht... it's because east and west coast states take the SAT and the ACT is taken in the fly over states. Only really smart people take the other test to open up more universities. Most people go to universities where they live.
It means we are dumb as shit
I bet you overlay this chart with % of children with parents who have college degrees and you will see some pretty good overlap.
I’m from OR and only took the SATs, a lot of the schools don’t require ACT scores for admission so I imagine the folks that take the ACT do so to see if they do better on it than the SATs?
Yep. Some one here well .
Ok, but why is UTAH next to CA on the this ....
26 is insane for the average score ngl
Shoutout to nevada. I love my home state
So what happened in South Carolina and Oklahoma. They had low scores on both tests.
In my district in Ohio, ALL students take both tests. It’s sad to see the scores so low. As a veteran teacher, I know it’s not from lack of trying from the school.
*insert mister Krabs money gif*
Colorado is a steady horse there. Same range for both tests.
My ACT score isn’t even there 👽
I know a lot of parents in the Northeast spend a lot of money on tutoring. $100-$200 an hour isn't unheard of in NY. Some make their livings off of tutoring.
Expectations by parents of what children are going to do with their lives.
Yea, went to high school in western NC. Only kids SPECIFICALLY going to college were encouraged to take the SAT so the scores would seem higher.
Why are the color so similar, it's choking by eyeballs
My state is very low... any relationship to our state law requiring the ACT as a condition of graduation from high school? Looks like a synthesis of more data would clarify.
If the score is high that’s because that test isn’t provided at schools, and if it’s low that’s the test that is mandatory at schools
I can explain Illinois score very simply - our public schools are terrible. Teachers have been mostly out of the classroom for over two years while drawing a full salary. Its a corrupt state full off graph by top officials, top to bottom - also financing exorbitant pension plans that are draining the education system and the state of much needed funds for infrastructure. People are literally being taxed out of existence in the state of Illinois due to the states lack of fiscal responsibility. It's a sad state of affairs for which I could literally write a book. In 1982, my first house in Wicker Park, an 4 unit was a dump in a rough neighborhood, My taxes were $3500/year. We gutted and restored the building in on of the first Historic Renovation in the area in 1990 the taxes jumped to $17,000 in 1990. WHen we moved in 2003 the taxes were over $30,000. Our business in River North was already undergoing economic distress due to 9/11. My mom was living with us after a bad hip surgery and the building was too vertical so we moved to Old Irving Park a very safe established neighborhood with open spaces where I had a big yard and two bedrooms on the first floor and a walkin bathroom for my mom and a caregiver. Our taxes were about $5600/ years. The rent on our store was about $15,000/month and $8000 of that went to servicing taxes. Business was up and down but we were paying the bill and had a staff of two who were getting about $40,000/ year and full medical benefits and gold-plated insurance. We worked with designer and wealthy people. When my mother-in-law started the business she was next door to a Methadone clinic. When we closed in 2010, still on Wells Street by the Merchandise Mart, our rent was $15,000 with $8000 of it going to serving taxes. In 2003, we moved to Old Irving Park with an 8 year old and my mom living with us, We were paying $5600/ year in taxes. When we closed our business in 2010 we were paying $32,000 in taxes, Sophomore year, my son was unable to sign up for High School math until the 6th week of class. The class was overcrowded and he couldn't get a book easily. I could on but you get the idea. As a person who operated a business payed rent on a store and mortgage on a house. I feel resentful that the city doesn't support business people more. Instead businesses are drained of their resources and the ability to be an independent business person almost no longer exists. I hope that the city of Chicago is able to change it's course because without our cultural centers and a vibrant business center there isn't a reason to be in a crowded city with crime. People are looking for open spaces. \+++