College entrance exam‐taking strategies in Georgia

Using administrative data from Georgia, we provide the first study of the full set of college entrance exam‐taking strategies, including who takes the ACT and the SAT (or both), when they take the exams, and how many times they take each exam. We have several main findings. First, one‐third of exam takers take both the ACT and SAT. Second, we see pronounced disparities in several measures of exam‐taking strategy by free‐ and reduced‐price lunch status, even after including a rich set of controls, but not by underrepresented minority status. Third, we find evidence that taking more total exams leads to higher admissions‐relevant test scores and a higher likelihood of enrolling in colleges with relatively high graduation rates and earnings. However, these relationships with test scores and college enrollment are smaller for those who take both the ACT and SAT, as opposed to retaking the same exam multiple times.