The ACT is in the throes of redefining how its test might best accommodate students and serve admissions offices in evaluating student capabilities and preparedness.
Driving this redefinition is a battle going on between the ACT and SAT for dominance in student testing. After the introduction of the new Core Curriculum, the SAT redesigned itself to become a measure of educational achievement and the skills obtained through the classroom: in essence it reinvented itself as the new ACT. The ACT had surged ahead of the SAT in administrations to high school students, only to see this lead dwindle till in early 2019, it had become second in the US high school testing market.
By fall of 2019, the ACT decided to add superscoring to its scoring options. Superscoring is defined as taking the best section scores from all the ACTs a student has taken. There are four sections on the test, the composite score is attained by dividing by 4: English (75 questions); Math (60 questions); Reading (40 questions); and Science (also 40 questions).
Superscoring till now had been scorned by the ACT, though used frequently by many schools for evaluating SAT scores. ACT superscoring was to go into effect in 2020, but COVID 19 threw a wrench into the works. Finally, with the April 2021 test, the ACT was back on track and introduced superscoring, allowing students who had taken any ACTS since 2017 to use their best scores along with the April test score.
Another feature the ACT was touting in 2019 was section testing that allows students to omit taking sections on future tests where they scored high. For example, if a student achieves a high score on the English and Math sections, she can eliminate them from future ACTs reducing the length of testing by 1 hour and 45 minutes. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until the fall of 2022 for this feature to get enacted.
If a student elects to send a college the new superscore report, it will feature the superscore displayed at the top, along with all the tests from which the superscoring has been calculated. The cost of sending this report is $15 per school.
Test takers can send up to 4 reports after taking an ACT test, but these reports are for the specific test taken, not the superscore report. Additionally, when ordering reports a test taker can elect to send either score reports for a specific administration of the test or her superscore, but not a combination of the two.
A list of colleges that superscore the ACT can be found at https://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-that-superscore-act-complete-list . It includes MIT, Middlebury, Tufts, UNCCH, Chicago, UPenn, UVA, BC and JHU. What’s most important is for applicants to check the website of the school to determine scoring policies. This is usually prominently posted somewhere on the admissions page. If you can’t find it, call the school directly and ask. Schools always love to hear from interested potential applicants.
Of course, you want to send the school exactly what each is looking for. Some schools want to see all the scores. Others, such as the University of Virginia, will only look at the superscore. Be aware of their needs and cater to them.
If you want a more detailed rendition of ACT superscoring “The Complete Guide to ACT Superscoring” by Compass Education’s Art Sawyer can be found at https://www.compassprep.com/the-complete-guide-to-act-superscoring/.