Test Score Planner
Convert between the SAT and the ACT with the official concordance tables, superscore both, and see our rule of thumb for sending a score, shown in full.
Step 1 of 3
Convert SAT to or from ACT
One lookup on the official 2018 concordance, made by ACT and College Board.
Your conversion shows up here
Step 2 of 3
Superscore both tests
Enter each test date’s section scores. One date is fine: then it’s simply your score.
SAT test dates
Reading and Writing and Math, 200 to 800 each.
SAT test 1
ACT test dates
English, math and reading, 1 to 36 each.
ACT test 1
Your superscore shows up here
Step 3 of 3
Send or withhold?
See where your score sits in each college’s middle 50%, judged by a simple rule we show in full.
Your score to compare
Add your scores in step 2 first (one test date is fine).
Shown in full
Lore’s rule of thumb
The midpoint is halfway between the 25th and 75th percentiles.
- Send
- At or above the midpoint of the college’s middle 50%.
- Consider withholding
- Below the 25th percentile at a test-optional college.
- Your call
- In between.
- Required
- A college that requires scores gets them either way.
Your colleges
Add up to 10. For each one, find its Common Data Set, Section C (commondataset.org, opens in a new tab) (item C9): search “[college name] Common Data Set”, and copy the 25th and 75th percentile SAT total or ACT Composite.
College 1
Enter the 25th and 75th percentiles and the verdict shows up here.
My test plan
How to read this
Where these numbers come from
Conversions come straight from the official 2018 ACT/SAT concordance (satsuite.collegeboard.org, opens in a new tab), made by ACT and College Board from students who took both tests. A concorded score isn’t a prediction of what you’d get on the other test: it’s the score that ranked about the same among those students. When a college’s range is on the other test, we convert your score to its scale and leave the college’s numbers exactly as published.
The enhanced ACT: the ACT is now shorter and science is optional, and since September 2025 every Composite is the average of English, math and reading only (ACT (act.org, opens in a new tab)). No new official table has been published for it. ACT says it believes the 2018 concordance will hold and that it will keep checking with College Board, so conversions of newer ACT scores are ACT’s stated expectation, not a new study (ACT (act.org, opens in a new tab)).
The digital SAT: College Board says its studies show digital SAT scores can be used the same way as paper SAT scores, so the same table applies (College Board (research.collegeboard.org, opens in a new tab)).
See the whole official table
| ACT | SAT (single) | SAT range |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | 1590 | 1570–1600 |
| 35 | 1540 | 1530–1560 |
| 34 | 1500 | 1490–1520 |
| 33 | 1460 | 1450–1480 |
| 32 | 1430 | 1420–1440 |
| 31 | 1400 | 1390–1410 |
| 30 | 1370 | 1360–1380 |
| 29 | 1340 | 1330–1350 |
| 28 | 1310 | 1300–1320 |
| 27 | 1280 | 1260–1290 |
| 26 | 1240 | 1230–1250 |
| 25 | 1210 | 1200–1220 |
| 24 | 1180 | 1160–1190 |
| 23 | 1140 | 1130–1150 |
| 22 | 1110 | 1100–1120 |
| 21 | 1080 | 1060–1090 |
| 20 | 1040 | 1030–1050 |
| 19 | 1010 | 990–1020 |
| 18 | 970 | 960–980 |
| 17 | 930 | 920–950 |
| 16 | 890 | 880–910 |
| 15 | 850 | 830–870 |
| 14 | 800 | 780–820 |
| 13 | 760 | 730–770 |
| 12 | 710 | 690–720 |
| 11 | 670 | 650–680 |
| 10 | 630 | 620–640 |
| 9 | 590 | 590–610 |
Every conversion is a lookup on the official table, and the send-or-withhold view is our rule of thumb. Neither predicts an admission decision; each college decides how it reads scores.
Where these facts come from
The 2018 ACT/SAT concordance tables, built by ACT and College Board from nearly 600,000 students in the class of 2017 who took both tests, are the only official way to compare SAT and ACT scores.
Converting an ACT Composite to an SAT total uses Table A2 of the official tables: one SAT score to use when you need a single number, plus the full SAT range that lines up with that ACT score.
Converting an SAT total to an ACT Composite uses Table A1 of the same tables. The official tables cover SAT 590–1600 and ACT 9–36; scores below that have no official conversion.
A concorded score isn’t a prediction of what you’d get on the other test. It’s the score with the same rank among a large group of students who took both tests at about the same time.
SAT totals run from 400 to 1600: two sections, Reading and Writing and Math, each from 200 to 800.
ACT Composite scores, and each section score, run from 1 to 36.
The enhanced ACT is shorter, with fewer questions, and science is optional. Since September 2025, every ACT Composite is the average of English, math and reading only.
There is no new official concordance for the enhanced ACT. ACT says it believes the 2018 concordance will hold, and that it will keep checking this with College Board over time.
College Board says its concordance studies show digital SAT scores can be used the same way as scores from the older paper SAT.
Colleges that superscore the SAT combine your highest Reading and Writing section score with your highest Math section score, even if they come from different test dates. Not every college superscores — check each college’s policy.
You choose which SAT scores to send by test date. You can’t send one section from one date and the other section from another; the college gets the whole test from each date you send.
ACT superscore: take your best English, best math and best reading scores from any of your attempts, add them, divide by three and round to the nearest whole number. Science isn’t part of it. ACT uses your best score in each section no matter which version of the test it came from.
ACT calculates your superscore automatically once you’ve tested more than once — no extra request needed.
ACT rounds the Composite to the nearest whole number: fractions under one-half round down, one-half or more round up. Since September 2025, new Composites and superscores are built from English, math and reading only.
Each college’s Common Data Set, Section C (item C9), lists the 25th and 75th percentile SAT and ACT scores of its enrolled first-year students — the "middle 50%". Search "[college name] Common Data Set" to find it on the college’s own site.