Changes are coming to the ACT test next year, and you and your students need to know what lies ahead.
ACT announced earlier this week that starting with the September 2020 national test date, students will have some new choices when taking the college entrance exam.
Here are the new options for students, according to a press release from ACT:
"ACT Section Retesting: For the first time in the 60-year history of the ACT test, students who have already taken the test will be allowed to retake individual ACT section tests (English, math, reading, science and/or writing), rather than having to take the entire ACT test again.
Online testing with faster score results: Students will, for the first time, have the option of online or paper testing on national test days at ACT test centers (selected test centers initially, eventually expanding to all). The test is currently administered only on paper on national test dates. Online testing offers faster results compared to traditional paper-based administration—two days compared to around two weeks.
ACT superscoring: ACT will report a superscore for students who have taken the ACT test more than once, giving colleges the option to use the student’s best scores from all test administrations, rather than scores from just one sitting, in their admission and scholarship decisions. New ACT research suggests that superscoring is actually more predictive of how students will perform in their college courses than other scoring methods."
The test content and format will not be changing. ACT indicates that these changes are "designed to meet students in the digital world where they live."
ACT has indicated that the pricing model for these options is still in development. However, they have indicated that students who qualify for a fee waiver can use a waiver for an entire test or for the section retesting. Students can retest up to three sections per test date. We will need to wait on the details to determine how this affects the total number of fee waivers to which a student is entitled.
The section-specific retests will only be available online at the testing sites in fall 2020. Students who are retaking a specific section will be in separate rooms from those using the traditional paper method. Offering section retesting as part of district and statewide testing programs is under consideration, according to the ACT website.
Section retests and “superscoring” will be available to students regardless of whether they take the full ACT test at a national test center, or as a part of districtwide or statewide testing.
It will be interesting to see what testing patterns students develop over the next few years and if and how colleges will use the “superscoring” in admission and scholarship decisions. These new options may result in school counselors and college access advisers creating new testing strategies for their students. Parents may also opt to weigh in with their children’s testing patterns. Programs that provide fee waivers, in addition to the ones allocated by ACT, may need to adjust policies once we understand the details of the pricing model.
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