SAT to ACT Score Converter

About the SAT to ACT Score Converter

Convert an SAT score to its ACT equivalent, or an ACT score to its SAT equivalent, with the concordance tables ACT and College Board produced together — the only official ones, and the ones both still point to. Every score you have converts at once: SAT Total to ACT Composite, SAT Math to ACT Math, and SAT Reading and Writing to ACT English and Reading added together, or the other way round, each with the table it comes from.

The result shows what the tables show and no more: the SAT range behind an ACT Composite (a 30 is 1360–1380, with 1370 as the single score), the SAT scores that share an ACT score, the margin of error of each comparison, and what ACT and College Board say about using the tables with today’s digital SAT and the enhanced ACT.

The six tables

The tables come in pairs, one for each direction: A1 and A2 for the SAT Total (400–1600) and the ACT Composite (1–36), B1 and B2 for SAT Math and ACT Math, and C1 and C2 for SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (ERW, 200–800) and ACT English plus Reading (2–72). A concorded pair is the ACT and SAT scores with the same rank among students who took both tests, weighted to stand for everyone who takes either test.

Only A2 gives a range: an ACT Composite of 27 sits beside SAT totals from 1260 to 1290, with 1280 as the single score to use. The other tables give one score, and several scores can share it — SAT Math 630, 640 and 650 all concord to ACT Math 27 — so the converter lists the scores that share your result. The Composite rows were built from the ACT sum score (all four tests added), as the tables’ note says.

How precise a concorded score is

The guide to the tables gives a standard error for each comparison. From an SAT Total, the concorded ACT Composite is good to about ±2 points (2.26); from an ACT Composite, the SAT Total to about ±80 (79.57). For Math it is about ±3 ACT points (2.65) or ±50 SAT points (50.33), and for the verbal scores about ±6 English+Reading points (5.93) or ±50 SAT points (46.66).

ACT and College Board add that a concorded score is not a prediction of how a student would do on the other test, that the tables should not be used on averages or ranges, and that combining SAT and ACT sections into one superscore is strongly discouraged.

The digital SAT and the enhanced ACT

Digital SAT. College Board linked digital SAT scores directly to the paper SAT’s scales, so no conversion is needed between the two, and its Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite says the existing ACT/SAT concordance tables can still be used with digital SAT scores; its page for comparing SAT and ACT scores offers these tables. A digital Reading and Writing score is on the same 200–800 scale as the paper test’s ERW.

Enhanced ACT. The ACT Composite is now the average of English, math and reading, rounded to the nearest whole number; science is optional and no longer part of it. ACT says it is keeping the three-section Composite comparable with the four-section one, that it believes the concordance will hold, and that it will keep reviewing the tables with College Board.

One cell the two printings disagree on

In Table C2, College Board’s guide and spreadsheet give ACT English+Reading 40 → SAT 530, while ACT’s PDF and web table give 520. The converter uses 530, which matches Table C1 (SAT 530 → 40) and the tables’ own single-score marks, and it says so whenever that cell is used.

Sources

• College Board, SAT and ACT comparison and the Guide to the ACT/SAT Concordance — the tables, their use and their standard errors
• ACT, Official ACT/SAT concordance tables — ACT’s printing of the tables
• ACT, Test enhancements: FAQs for higher education — the Composite without science and the concordance
• College Board, Assessment Framework for the Digital SAT Suite — how digital scores were linked to the paper SAT

Limitations

• A concorded score compares the two tests; it does not predict the score you would get on the other one.
• Scores below the tables have no concorded score: an SAT Total under 590, SAT Math under 260, SAT Reading and Writing under 280, an ACT Composite under 9, ACT Math under 10 or ACT English+Reading under 14.
• ACT Writing and the SAT Essay are in none of the tables, and ACT Science has no table of its own (it was part of the Composite the tables were built from).
• Colleges decide how they use SAT and ACT scores; the tables are not meant for converting a college’s average or middle-50% range.

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