Beginning with tests in September of next year, the ACT has committed to offering three new features:
1. Section re-testing:
ACT Section Retesting helps students focus study efforts on individual subjects that are part of the ACT test (English, math, reading, science, or writing) without having to study for the entire test again. ACT Section Retesting is available to all students who have taken the full ACT test. Students can retake one or more single-section subject tests at approved ACT test centers across the US, to improve their scores.
2. Online testing:
Online ACT Testing will allow ACT’s testing experience to better align with how today’s students often prefer to learn and the mode they prefer for testing. Starting in September 2020, students will be able to choose to take the ACT test online or with paper. Giving students a choice allows them to focus on what’s most important: doing their best on the test. Students who take the test online will get faster test results. In fact, students will receive their multiple-choice test scores and ACT Composite score as early as two business days after the test date. This allows students to make better, more informed, and timely decisions about the schools and scholarships to which they apply.
3. Reporting of super scores:
To support the growing trend of students taking the ACT test multiple times, score report options will now provide the option for students to send their best ACT test results to colleges and include a calculated ACT Superscore. Superscoring allows students to submit their highest scores for college admission and scholarship purposes. The Superscore is a recalculation which shows the highest possible composite score across multiple ACT tests and ACT Section Retests. It reflects the average of the four best subject scores from each of the student's ACT test attempts.
The impacts of this on the evaluation process for students' applications remains to be seen. However, the impact on the admissions process will be immediate.
At Penn State, we do not "superscore" an applicant's SAT or ACT exam scores (the College Board explains superscoring really well here). So if the student requests the superscored exam results to be sent to Penn State, then we aren't getting the data that we want in order to evaluate the application properly. This is just one example of a complication of these new "options" for students. I haven't dug too deeply into it yet, but I'm certain that there will be others.
But my follow-up question is this: now that the ACT will be doing this, how long before the College Board follows suit?
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Admissions