Both the ACT and SAT are accepted by the vast majority of four-year colleges and universities in the United States. The ACT has long been the more “teachable” test in that its questions are typically simpler to identify (i.e., categorize into a specific question type) and solve using a clear set of procedures. Indeed, students nationwide seem to have voted with their feet in favor of the ACT: once considered a Midwestern regional test that lagged behind the East/West-coast-dominant SAT, the ACT caught up to the SAT in 2011, when about 1.67 million students nationwide took each test. The ACT then surpassed the SAT in terms of the number of students taking it by 2015, prompting the SAT to redesign itself in 2016. The redesigned SAT has recaptured some of its former supremacy — in 2020, according to US New and World Report, 2.2 million students took the SAT, which exceeded the 1.8 million who took the ACT by a decent margin. Virtually all colleges and universities that require standardized test scores accept both the ACT and the SAT, which means that students can choose which test is best for them.

Features in favor of the ACT:

The ACT is overall a more straightforward test, with more predictable (and therefore teachable) questions