TEST TAKERS, STATE BY STATE Percentage of high school graduates in classes of 2001 and 2006 who took each test (some took both): SAT ACT 2001 2006 2001 2006 Alabama 9 9 69 79 Alaska 51 51 34 25 Arizona 34 32 28 18 Arkansas 6 5 75 75 California 51 49 12 14 Colorado 31 26 62 100 Connecticut 82 84 4 12 Delaware 67 73 4 5 D.C. 56 78 26 30 Florida 54 65 40 45 Georgia 63 70 19 30 Hawaii 52 60 19 17 Idaho 17 19 59 57 Illinois 12 9 71 100 Indiana 60 62 20 20 Iowa 5 4 67 65 Kansas 9 8 78 75 Kentucky 12 11 72 76 Louisiana 7 6 80 74 Maine 69 73 6 10 Maryland 65 70 11 12 Massachusetts 79 85 8 13 Michigan 11 10 69 67 Minnesota 9 10 66 67 Mississippi 4 4 89 93 Missouri 8 7 70 70 Montana 23 28 55 57 Nebraska 8 7 74 76 Nevada 33 40 39 27 New Hampshire 72 82 7 12 New Jersey 81 82 4 8 New Mexico 13 13 64 60 New York 77 88 14 17 North Carolina 65 71 13 14 North Dakota 4 4 80 80 Ohio 26 28 63 66 Oklahoma 8 7 71 72 Oregon 55 55 11 13 Pennsylvania 71 74 8 9 Rhode Island 71 69 5 8 South Carolina 57 62 28 39 South Dakota 4 4 70 75 Tennessee 13 15 79 93 Texas 53 52 33 29 Utah 5 7 69 69 Vermont 69 67 9 19 Virginia 68 73 10 15 Washington 53 54 17 15 West Virginia 18 20 61 64 Wisconsin 6 6 68 68 Wyoming 11 10 64 71 Source: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education; College Board, ACT

All but a handful of colleges have long allowed applicants to submit either test. But Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., started accepting ACTs with last fall's freshman class. And this year, officials at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., said they would accept applicants' ACT scores beginning this fall. It was the lone holdout of an earlier era, when geography dictated who took which test.

For decades, the 81-year-old SAT, owned by New York-based College Board, was the test of choice for colleges on the East and West Coasts. The ACT, which made its debut in 1959 and is based in Iowa City, was adopted primarily by schools in between.

Students in certain states still favor a particular test, but for colleges, the distinction faded as more schools sought to nationalize their student populations. Harvey Mudd, for example, wants more applicants from the ACT-dominant South and Midwest, which represent 9% and 7% of its applicant pool, respectively. California, an SAT state, represents 45%.

"Every year we would receive phone calls from students who took (only) the ACT" and had to be turned away, says interim admissions vice president Peter Osgood. "We didn't have a really defensible answer for why we didn't" accept their ACT scores.

The change at Harvey Mudd comes even as a growing number of colleges rethink standardized admissions tests altogether. Today, about 730 institutions have made certain such tests optional for at least some students.

Even so, the SAT and ACT are serving more students than ever.

The ACT has been particularly aggressive in working with states to launch statewide achievement tests. Illinois and Colorado, where the ACT has long dominated, now require all high school juniors to take the ACT, and Michigan will do so beginning this spring. Kentucky begins an ACT requirement next school year, and Wyoming and Tennessee are on board with similar arrangements with the ACT. The College Board is working with Maine.

As more admissions-savvy kids try their hand at both tests, the ACT also is seeing rapid growth in SAT-dominant states. California saw a 40% increase in ACT takers since 2001; New York, a 23% rise. Numbers more than doubled in New Jersey and Vermont, and more than tripled in Connecticut.

Even so, the SAT remains the dominant test nationally. Not only does it serve more students each year, the number of graduating seniors taking the SAT overall increased at a faster rate since 2001. Last year, nearly 1.5 million high school graduates had taken the SAT; 1.2 million had taken the ACT.

But two notable wrinkles surfaced when last year's test data were released. The College Board reported a drop in SAT takers of nearly 10,000 students; the ACT was up more than 20,000. And the SAT national average scores dropped; ACT scores rose significantly.

College Board vice president Wayne Camara says it's too soon to know whether SAT numbers will be up next year, though early indicators are promising.

Some industry watchers attribute the SAT's dips to the debut of its revised version in 2005, which affected 2006 high school graduates. "Any time there's a new test, you expect some sort of change in the market," says Seppy Basili, a vice president at test-prep company Kaplan Inc.

But Ned Johnson, founder of PrepMatters, a test-prep company that serves the Washington, D.C., area, says he wouldn't be surprised if even more students in SAT-dominant regions like his turn to the ACT.

One reason, he says, has to do with the College Board's handling of a scoring error that affected more than 4,000 students. Colleges and students were notified of the problem at the height of the ultra-anxiety-producing admissions season. Some critics say the College Board should have spoken up sooner.

The ACT is a "more straightforward test," Johnson says, but he adds, "the way the College Board stumbled did more to elevate the ACT than the ACT ever could have done of its own accord."

ACT officials prefer to credit their own efforts. "I think our customer service and the quality of our program has been a bigger driver," says ACT vice president Jon Erickson.

Harvey Mudd's new policy won't change much for the ACT, he says, but it was "especially satisfying because it was the last college in the country."

"There's still a perception that (some) schools won't take the ACT," he says. "Maybe this will help finish that perception off."

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Enlarge By Kevin Mapp, Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., will accept ACTscores this fall. Here, assistant professor Elizabeth Orwin, left, and physics major Emily Hogan examine cells in a tissue culture lab.