Increasing competitiveness about the college process means that more applicants these days are eschewing the traditional SAT exam in favor of another test - the ACT.
Experts says the ACT has grown in popularity over the past decade, including in areas where taking the SAT used to be an unrivaled rite of college preparation.
And at Penn, nearly a quarter of all incoming applications include ACT scores, according to Dean of admissions Lee Stetson.
The rise in ACT popularity goes hand in hand with the increasingly competitive nature of college admissions, as students are looking to see which test provides them with a higher score, said Kristin Campbell, national director of ACT programs at Kaplan - a popular national college-preparation company.
This allows them to put the best possible college application together, she said.
ACT Inc., which administers the ACT, has seen national growth every year for the past decade, company spokesman Ed Colby said. Between 1996 and 2006, the number of high-school students taking the exam yearly rose from 35 percent to 40 percent.
Colby added that there has been "significant growth" on the east coast and in New England, which have traditionally been SAT-dominant areas.
Beginning in May 2005, the SAT introduced a writing section, eliminated analogies and included more complex math problems and longer reading passages.
To accommodate the growth in ACT-takers, Kaplan has had double-digit growth in ACT prep classes in New England over the past few years, Campbell said. The company has even created an ACT/SAT combination practice exam for clients just starting out.
Part of the ACT's appeal, experts say, is its more user-friendly nature.
Campbell pointed to the ACT's lack of a penalty for wrong answers, its science section and its score-choice option - allowing students to select which scores to send in and which ones to conceal- as possible advantages of the ACT over the SAT.
Michele Hernandez, president and founder of Hernandez College Consulting, said she likes the ACT because it's shorter, "fairer" and "more humane" than the SAT. She encourages all of her clients to at least take a practice ACT exam.
She added that because a final ACT score is an average of all the sections - rather than a sum, as on the SAT - it is possible to compensate for one weak section with several strong sections.
