Understanding The Relationship Between The College Board and The ACT Test
American College Testing (ACT) is a standardized exam that high school students take in college admission readiness in the US. High schools, colleges, universities, and education departments in states use the ACT scores in comparing students’ applications for admission.
ACT Inc. conducts the exam to evaluate the student’s readiness for college, recognize subjects the student is weak in, and enrich college/university admissions. The ACT exam is a challenger to SAT exam, which the College Board conducts.
What is the College Board and what does it do?
The College Board is the largest non-profit organization in the US that helps students navigate the transition from high school to university/college through various programs. The organization administers standardized tests such as College Level Examination Program (CLEP), PSAT/NMSQT, SAT, Advanced Placement Program, SpringBoard, and Accuplacer.
Most importantly, the College Board includes more than 5,900 schools, universities, colleges, and other institutions. Besides administering the college placement tests at a specific fee, the board also offers tools, survives, and resources to parents, students, universities, and colleges in college planning, admission, financial aid, recruitment, and retention.
With almost 6,000 member schools, universities, colleges, and organizations, the College Board stands out by offering testing materials, scholarships, financial aid and enhanced college search tool, narrowing colleges down by available programs and reputation. For students considering college, the College Board is a one-stop-shop for everything starting from prep tests such as SAT and CLEP, and students can also go through the financial aid application process.
Equally, students will access SAT, CLEP, and AP practice tests and assignments, thus offering them a chance to improve scores before the real test.
Similarly, the financial management tools and resources make the board a vital tool for college applicants. Financial aid is a critical aspect when choosing a school you will attend, and the board will help the student with a school’s database putting scholarship and financial assistance on the site.
The college search tool on the College Board searches page helps students with information regarding degrees and majors available in different schools. The organization and search toil make the application and enrollment process simpler for college applicants and their families.
What CEEB codes does the College Board maintain?
During the college application process, you will need specific codes at some stage, among them CEEB codes. You may wonder what CEEB codes are.
These identification numbers created by the College Board for specific organizations and locations to prevent confusion and ensure transcripts, test scores, and applications are sent to the right place. For instance inclusion of a CEEB code on a score report means that a score report for Columbia College doesn’t go to Columbia University instead.
Initially, the College Board had designed the CEEB codes for sending SAT scores, but their use expanded to include codes for high schools, colleges, countries, majors, test centers, and scholarships. Other institutions also use the codes besides the board.
For instance, ACT also maintains ACT codes, similar to CEEB codes, for test centers, high schools, colleges, and scholarships. Interestingly, other institutions rarely use the ACT codes and are only meant for identifying where to send ACT score reports.
What is the relationship between ACT and College Board?
The ACT and College Board help colleges go through huge college applications to decide on the students that make the cut. The organizations have been making changes to their mission of making colleges accessible to a wide range of students and help make them ready for college.
The College Board has a new adversity score which responds to a growing trend among colleges to attract and enroll first-generation students and those with few resources. Similarly, ACT has been working on an approach to bolster student diversity through the ACT Holistic Framework.
College Board ACT Scores
Recently, the College Board and ACT conducted a comparative study to observe the relationship- between SAT and ACT scores. The study conducted by the College Board in partnership with ACT using results of various test takers came up with a concordance table for SAT and ACT scores.
The concordance tables help in observing comparable scores. However, the College Board’s concordance tables are based on the conversion of New ACT score to Old scores before converting them to ACT scores.
What are ACT concordance tables, and how are they used?
ACT and College Board completed a study to develop concordance tables showing the relationship between ACT and SAT scores. The tables don’t equate scores, but they instead a tool for establishing comparative scores. The concordance tables act as a guide for ACT provisions comparisons, as they were before the revision with those provided in the revision. Usually, it is challenging to compare ACT and SAT scores since both test different aspects.
For instance, ACT will evaluate your reading, high-order thinking skills, and knowledge in high school knowledge in Science, Math, and English subjects, but SAT measures your reading, writing, and math reasoning skills, which are related to the high school syllabus.
Because of SAT and ACT content’s incomparability, it becomes challenging to compare test scores. As a result, there is a need to understand and use SAT and Act scores separately, and this is where the concordance tables come in. The tables are important to students, their families, and college counselors who use them to inform college explorations and searches.
Similarly, K-12 educators, researchers, and policymakers can use the tables in aggregating scores in various tests to assess the student’s college readiness.
For universities, colleges, athletic conferences, and scholarship organizations, the tables are vital in determining scholarship or program eligibility.
Institutions will use concordance tables in determining a comparable score to evaluate a students’ performance when a separate SAT or Act scores evaluation system is not available. Similarly, they are vital in policy establishment through comparable scores from the ACT and SAT scores, whereby an institution or scholarship program will use the score to determine eligibility.
