What SAT/ACT concordance actually is
Concordance is not a conversion formula; it is a statistical relationship. ACT and the College Board took a large sample of students who had taken both tests and worked out which scores sit at the same percentile, publishing the result as step tables in 2018. That is why the tables are banded: SAT 1570 to 1600 all map to an ACT composite of 36, 1530 to 1560 map to 35, and so on. Nothing in the table says a student who scores 1400 on the SAT would score 31 on the ACT — it says those two scores are comparable, on average, across a population.
Reading the two directions
The tables are deliberately asymmetric. Table A1 maps SAT to ACT in bands, while Table A2 gives each ACT composite a single "concordant" SAT value plus the range it came from. ACT 29, for example, is listed against SAT 1340 with a range of 1330–1350. Use A1 when you have an SAT score and A2 when you have an ACT score; do not mix them, and do not expect the two to be exact inverses.
Section-level comparisons
Section tables exist for Math and for verbal skills, but they are built differently. SAT Math is paired with ACT Math (both single sections, both out of 36). SAT ERW is paired with ACT English + Reading combined, out of 72, because the two verbal sections of the ACT split the same skills differently. There is no counterpart for ACT Science at all. So a full section-by-section conversion is impossible by design, and any tool that offers one is inventing numbers. This page shows the combined verbal figure and labels the composite estimate as partial when Science is unknown.
How students should use this
- For college lists: convert to compare where you stand, then check each college's published mid-50% ranges for the test you actually took.
- For scholarships and eligibility: many programmes quote an ACT threshold in SAT terms, or the reverse; the tables are the basis they use, so cite the band, not a precise score.
- For choosing which test to take: concordance can tell you which test flatters you slightly, but the difference that matters is format — the ACT is faster with a Science section, the SAT is more reading-heavy with more time per question.
- For "superscoring": colleges that superscore use their own rules; a concorded score is not a substitute for an official superscore.
Editable by design
Concordance is a snapshot, not a law. Percentiles drift as test-taking populations change, some colleges publish their own tables, and the 2018 tables are the most recent release rather than a yearly update. Every table on this page is therefore editable: change a line and all results recalculate from your version, so you can model a college's own table or test how sensitive an estimate is to a different band width.
Frequently asked questions
What ACT score is a 1500 SAT?
SAT 1500 falls in the 1490–1520 band, which the 2018 concordance maps to an ACT composite of 34. The neighbouring ACT 35 band covers SAT 1530–1560, so anything from about 1490 upward is "ACT 34 or better" territory.
Is SAT to ACT conversion exact?
No. Concordance compares how scores sit in the population; it does not predict how you personally would perform on the other test. The tables are banded for exactly that reason — a 40-point SAT span shares one ACT value — so treat any conversion as a range.
Why does the table only give ACT English + Reading together?
Because the concordance study matched SAT ERW with the two ACT verbal sections combined, out of 72. The tests divide verbal skills differently, so there is no published SAT-to-ACT English or SAT-to-ACT Reading figure, and ACT Science has no SAT counterpart at all.
What is a 36 ACT in SAT terms?
ACT 36 is concorded to SAT 1590, with a published range of 1570–1600. In the other direction, only SAT 1570 and above maps to an ACT 36 — which is why a perfect ACT and a 1540 SAT are not treated as equivalent.
Does a higher concorded score help my application?
Only if you send it. Colleges accept either test and compare you against applicants who took the same one, using their own published ranges. A concorded score is useful for your own planning and for scholarship thresholds that quote the other test.
How should I use this if my college publishes its own conversion?
Use the college version. Everything on this page is editable for that reason: replace the table with the one your college or scholarship programme publishes and the results follow it. Where the two disagree, the institution decides.
Do the tables change every year?
The 2018 tables are the current published release and are not updated annually; ACT notes that they compare scores rather than predict performance. Percentiles can drift over time, which is another reason to treat fine-grained differences as noise.
Is the composite I get from the section tables reliable?
It is a partial estimate. The composite is the average of English, Math, Reading and Science, and the concordance lets us fill in Math and the combined verbal side only, so the Science quarter is missing. Use it to sanity-check a range, not as a prediction.
Background on how the concordance tables were built, and why the answer is always a band rather than a single number: Why SAT and ACT scores do not convert exactly.