The "Take Both" Strategy — When It Helps and When It's a Waste

There's a strategy that sounds great in theory: take both the SAT and the ACT, see which one you do better on, and submit that score. You double your chances. You cover your bases. You can't lose. Except that theory ignores the fact that every test you prep for costs time you don't have extra of, energy you're already burning through, and focus that gets thinner the more you split it. The "take both" strategy is real and it works for specific students in specific situations. For everyone else, it's an expensive distraction.

The Reality

The logic behind taking both tests is rooted in a genuine insight: the SAT and ACT measure overlapping but not identical skills, and some students perform meaningfully better on one than the other. Compass Education Group's analysis of students who took both tests found that roughly 30% scored notably higher on one test relative to their concorded score on the other. [VERIFY exact Compass percentage for meaningful score divergence between SAT and ACT] That's not a trivial number. If you happen to be in that 30%, submitting the right test could mean a significant percentile advantage.

The College Board's Score Choice policy allows you to choose which SAT sittings to send to colleges. ACT similarly lets you select which test dates to report. This means you can take both tests and only reveal the one where you performed better. Most colleges won't know you took the other test at all. The system is literally [QA-FLAG: banned word — replace] built to let you do this.

But here's where the theory meets friction. Prepping for the SAT and the ACT simultaneously is not the same as prepping for one test twice. Yes, there's significant overlap — both test reading comprehension, grammar and usage, and math through algebra and some geometry. But the ACT has a Science section the SAT doesn't. The SAT's math goes deeper into problem-solving and data analysis. The timing per question is dramatically different — the ACT gives you roughly 50 seconds per question versus the SAT's roughly 75 seconds, according to each test's published specifications. These differences mean you need to build different test-taking muscles. Speed-reading for ACT. Careful analysis for SAT. Dual prep doesn't double the time requirement, but it does add something like 30-40% more prep hours to do properly. [VERIFY estimated additional prep time for dual test preparation]

The Play

The "take both" strategy makes sense under a specific set of conditions. Before you commit to it, run through this checklist honestly.

Take both if: You're in the fall of your junior year or earlier, you've taken a full diagnostic of each test under real conditions, and your concorded scores are close enough that you genuinely can't tell which is your better test. "Close enough" means within 1-2 percentile points of each other after concordance. If one test already shows a clear 3+ percentile advantage, skip the dual strategy and commit to the stronger test. You've already found your answer.

Take both if: You're a strong standardized test-taker in general — meaning you don't struggle with test anxiety, you perform reasonably well under time pressure, and you can add another test date to your schedule without it crowding out academics, extracurriculars, or sleep. The "take both" strategy works best for students who test well and just need to figure out which format clicks better. It works worst for students who are already grinding [QA-FLAG: banned word — replace] to improve on one test and spreading themselves thinner.

Take both if: You want test-optional flexibility. Here's a benefit most people don't think about. If you take both tests and score well on one, you can submit that score where it helps your application and go test-optional at schools where neither score is competitive. Having two data points to choose from gives you more options in the submit-or-don't calculation. According to NACAC's guidance on test-optional policies, the strategic value of score submission depends on where your score falls relative to a school's admitted-student range. More scores to choose from means more chances to land in the "helps to submit" category at different schools.

Don't take both if: You have limited prep time. If you're already in the spring of junior year and haven't taken either test yet, splitting your prep between SAT and ACT is almost certainly worse than picking one and going deep. The test date logistics might technically allow it — SAT and ACT are given on different weekends, and you could take both within the same month. But the prep logistics don't support it unless you've got months of runway.

Don't take both if: You have a clear preference after diagnostics. If your practice SAT is a 1340 and your concorded ACT equivalent is a 28 when the concordance table says 1340 maps to roughly a 29-30, you have your answer. The SAT is your test. Go deep on SAT prep and stop thinking about the ACT. Continuing to consider both is a form of decision avoidance dressed up as strategy.

Don't take both if: Test anxiety is a significant factor for you. Every test sitting is a stress event. If taking one standardized test already spikes your anxiety, adding a second test — with a different format, different timing, different rules — isn't giving you more chances. It's giving you more chances to feel terrible. The compound stress effect is real, and it's not worth the theoretical upside of having two scores to compare.

The Math

Let's model the expected value of the "take both" approach versus the "pick one and go deep" approach.

Scenario A: You take just the SAT three times with focused prep between sittings. Each sitting costs you maybe 40-60 hours of prep plus the test day itself. Total investment: roughly 120-180 hours of SAT-specific preparation across three sittings. Expected improvement from first to best sitting: 60-120 points, according to score improvement data published by test prep researchers. [VERIFY typical SAT improvement range across three sittings with structured prep]

Scenario B: You take the SAT twice and the ACT twice, splitting your prep. Total investment might be similar in hours — say 150-200 — but divided between two formats. Your expected improvement on each test is lower because you've diluted your prep. However, your expected best-submission score might be higher if it turns out one test is naturally a better fit. You're trading depth for breadth.

The break-even question is: how likely is it that one test is enough better for you that the breadth advantage outweighs the depth disadvantage? For the roughly 30% of students who show a meaningful score divergence, the "take both" strategy produces a better submission score. [VERIFY if this 30% estimate aligns with current Compass or similar data] For the other 70%, it produces two mediocre scores instead of one strong one.

Here's the cost-benefit in concrete terms. Say you're a student who would score a 1350 SAT with full focused prep, and your ACT concordance is roughly equivalent — a 30. If you split your prep, you might end up with a 1300 SAT and a 29 ACT. Neither score is as strong as the 1350 you could have gotten by committing. But if you're one of the students where the tests diverge, you might split your prep and get a 1280 SAT but a 31 ACT — and that 31 is more valuable than the 1350 SAT would have been for certain schools. The problem is you can't know in advance which group you're in. That's why diagnostics matter so much. Take full-length, timed, real-conditions diagnostics of both tests before you decide. That diagnostic data is what separates a strategic decision from a coin flip.

The logistics at least cooperate. The SAT is typically offered in March, May, June, August, October, November, and December. The ACT is offered in February, April, June, July, September, October, and December. The dates don't directly conflict — you won't have to choose between them on the same morning. You could take the SAT in October and the ACT in September of the same year without issue. But your prep calendar is finite, and every week spent reviewing ACT Science is a week not spent drilling SAT Math.

What Most People Get Wrong

The most common mistake is treating "take both" as the default strategy. It's not a default. It's an advanced play for students with surplus time and genuinely unclear diagnostics. The vast majority of students are better served by the simple approach: take a practice test of each, compare concorded scores, commit to the winner, and go deep. This is boring advice. It's also correct for most people.

The second mistake is letting external pressure drive the decision. Some parents push the "take both" strategy because it feels like doing more, and doing more feels safer. Some friends are taking both, so you feel like you should too. Some counselors recommend it as a blanket policy. None of these are good reasons. The only good reason is diagnostic data showing genuinely ambiguous results between the two tests, combined with enough time to prep for both without sacrificing your GPA or your sanity.

The third mistake is not understanding Score Choice and reporting policies well enough. The College Board's Score Choice lets you pick which sittings to send — but some schools, like Georgetown, require you to send all scores from all sittings. If a school on your list has a "send everything" policy, the "take both and hide the worse one" strategy doesn't work there. Before committing to this approach, check the score reporting requirements for every school you're considering. ACT's reporting options similarly let you choose test dates, but the same school-level exceptions apply.

The fourth mistake is conflating "take both" with "prep for both." You can take a diagnostic of both tests to help you choose, without committing to prepping for both. In fact, this is the recommended approach for nearly everyone: take one full-length SAT practice test and one full-length ACT practice test, compare your concorded scores, make your decision, and then prep exclusively for the winner. That's not the "take both" strategy. That's the smart way to pick one test. The "take both" strategy means actually prepping for and officially taking both tests with the intention of submitting whichever score is better. Don't confuse the diagnostic step with the dual-test commitment.

This article is part of the ACT vs. SAT - The Honest Comparison series at SurviveHighSchool.

Related reading: Superscoring — How It Works Differently for SAT and ACT, What Colleges Actually See When You Submit Scores, Making Your Final Test Decision — The Framework