Kind of annoyed by this. My child took the ACT in fall 2024 (before science was dropped from the scoring) and scored 34 composite. We recently submitted several applications and I was just looking through on of her portals and it shows her test received and says:
ACT Total Score: 34
ACT Superscore: 33
Underneath it says since the ACT no longer includes Science in their reporting so we have dropped the science score and no longer consider it and are lowering the score retroactively.
I know the ACT test changed AFTER she took it. But she took the test and scored 34 - why would a school penalize her and consider a lower score. The whole point of the super score is to give kids a chance to put their best score forward. My kid took it once and scored 34 and now at least one school is saying, yeah, we’re just going to say she scored 33.
Calling BS on this. It probably won’t adversely affect her admissions outcome, I would guess. But how asinine for a college to lower her score retroactively.
Yea. She doesn’t need to note anything because we sent an official score report from ACT that shows it’s a 34. And I mean a school can consider it however they want to. But her portal literally says they (the school) are retroactively lowering her score. They can do that if they want but - if they must - why would they even tell us that.
Probably not thinking about it as deeply as you - or equalizing. Maybe a parent or ten in a similar situation will mention the frustration. Maybe (not saying she should) email her admission counselor to give them a heads up?
Best of luck to her - hopefully it has zero impact.
I would also be annoyed by this. My daughter’s first choice school has automatic merit that there is a $4000/yr difference between a 33 and a 34 and I cannot imagine my reaction if this was her situation. Surely in most cases it would make no difference and they wouldn’t actually penalize a kid but I would definitely be concerned about it if my daughter found herself there.
The schools all make their own decisions about what to do about the changes in the ACT and how to consider pre- and post-change scores. I’m sure they are aware of the fact that if they take out the science score, some kids’ composites change. It is what it is. The only situation in which the student should raise this with an AO is if it affects auto-merit, as a PP mentioned.