Higher SAT Scores Do NOT Correlate with Higher ACT Scores, but Lower SAT Scores DO Correlate with Lower ACT Scores
There is no clear connection between SAT scores performance and ACT score performance.
Although schools within the 0-30% English Learners range tend to have higher SAT scores, this does not necessarily lead to doing better on ACT exams.
Schools with >60% of English Learners score higher than schools with 35.1-60% English Learners on the SAT, but lower on the ACT.
However, schools with lower SAT scores – such as those schools within the 30.1-60% English Learners range – score lower on both the SAT and the ACT compared to their peers in the 0-30% and >60% English Learners range.
| %EL Range | Avg SAT Test Score | SAT National Percentiles | Avg ACT Test Score | ACT National Percentiles |
| 0-5% | 1062.89 | 50-59% | 20.51 | 59% |
| 5.1-10% | 1047.10 | 41-50% | 20.27 | 50% |
| 10.1-15% | 1053.50 | 50-59% | 20.37 | 50% |
| 15.1-20% | 1008.69 | 41-50% | 19.60 | 50% |
| 20.1%-25% | 1003.50 | 41-50% | 18.98 | 47% |
| 25.1-30% | 1029.88 | 41-50% | 19.89 | 50% |
| 30.1-35% | 987.29 | 33-41% | 19.51 | 50% |
| 35.1-40% | 983.00 | 33-41% | 19.15 | 47% |
| 40.1-45% | 953.36 | 33-41% | 18.39 | 41% |
| 45.1-50% | 943.00 | 25-33% | 17.83 | 41% |
| 50.1-55% | 944.60 | 25-33% | 15.60 | 28% |
| 55.1-60% | 893.75 | 18-25% | 15.83 | 28% |
| 60.1-65% | 985.50 | 33-41% | 17.80 | 35% |
| 65%< | 1050.50 | 50-59% | 17.85 | 35% |
There are key differences between the SAT and the ACT:
The SAT is more popular than the ACT, and there are more resources to prepare for SAT exams than there are for the ACT. It is likely that school district's with lower funding (those with more English Learners) have more access to SAT preparatory programs to incorporate into their core curriculums. It could also be the case that these schools try to specifically tailor their academic curriculum to prepare specifically for the concepts that are tested in the SAT, since students are not required to take both the SAT and the ACT to matriculate to colleges. Therefore, students who attend these schools are probably more prepared for the questions that are asked in the SAT.
The higher popularity of the SAT would also indicate that there is a higher availability of resources such as test-prep books that are available to students who plan to apply to colleges, better preparing them for the SAT than for the ACT.
One explanation for the lower test scores on the ACT is that it tests for a wider degree of academic understanding – it has sections for Math, Reading, Science, English, and Writing, whereas the SAT only tests for Math, Reading, and Writing. It therefore makes sense that schools with lower resources prepare their students to take the SAT, as there is a relatively smaller degree of concepts to cover.
A higher number of English Learners in a school district increases the odds that the school creates a curriculum that is designed for both English Learners and non-English Learners. As many of the existing academic literature would suggest, students who are exposed to other languages – which applies to many of the non-EL in schools with high numbers of EL – tend to do better on academic assessment. While some non-EL are exposed by proxy to a courseload which is tailored for both EL and non-EL, it is likely that they perform differently than their non-EL peers who go to predominantly non-EL dominated schools.