My daughter received a letter this weekend from ACT accusing him of cheating. Her test was flagged because of her jump in score. SHE DID NOT CHEAT. She had an accomodation in place and did endless hours of tutoring and test prep. She is a high achieving student. 3.9 GPA , 4’s and 5s on AP exams junior year etc. They are giving her 3 options: cancel the score, retake the test “privately” and score within 3 points of his score in order to keep it or appeal. She is a senior in the midst of college applications. This test was taken in June and she just received this letter on October 18th. She is devastated.
Has anyone had this happen and if so did you appeal? did you win? and how? Please help!
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Was this the first test she took with an accommodation in place? If so, is that seems like a valid basis for the appeal, although I have no direct experience with those. Did she take it in a regular testing center? Hopefully, someone who has been through this with a kid will respond.
She has taken the test 3 times. The second and third times, she had the accommodation. The third time was her highest score. The third test is in question. Yes, she took it at a regular testing center.
@Hanna - I believe this poster may be able to offer advice. I may be wrong, as not a great memory.
Sorry this happened with your child - hang in there.
Sorry this happened. This is something I fear if my daughters score ever takes the leap she’s worked so hard for. Here is an older thread. ACT accusing student of cheating - #11 by blossom
How can I contact that person? I am new here.
Did you use a private tutoring/test prep company? If so, they may have documentation on your daughter’s progress that can be used in the appeal. I also think her school record would support a high score.
There was a really long thread the year my D was applying to colleges that may still have some relevant information. If I recall there were a number of students that year that were accused of cheating and the parent who started the thread successfully appealed the decision: ACT Testing Wrongly Accusing Cheating
@Hanna is a regular member here and has been tagged so she will see that she’s been paged to help!
@Lindagaf - Do you have any suggestions for this family?
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This thread has all the most relevant information. ACT Testing Wrongly Accusing Cheating
Yes, she used private tutors. I just keep hearing that ACT denies almost all appeals and they drag out the process. She is already applying to schools. How can they do this in October???This is so awful and is causing such unnecessary stress
She also had extra time accommodation put in place which helped tremendously but they are saying her score sheet looks too much like someone seated next to her!
This is so awful. I’m sorry. I have heard of this happening to several others, both through this site and on a neighborhood FB group. I’ve never heard of anyone winning an appeal. Everything about this sucks, especially that they are dropping this on you six months later and weeks before college applications are due. My own child’s score jumped dramatically last year and I was worried it would happen to us, but thankfully it didn’t. I wish I had more useful advice, but I’m just very sorry.
Thank you! I appreciate it.
Thank you - I have read through it thoroughly.
I’m confused by your posts, your first post says her test was flagged because of jump in score, but in another post it says they said her score sheet looks too much like the person sitting next to her. If its the latter unfortunately I don’t think they are going to budge (that is why they keep track of the seating to begin with) but typically there are fewer students with accommodations so they are much more spread out in the room, I would ask her how close the people around her really were as perhaps that is an avenue to question the plausibility of the accusation if you choose to appeal.
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Yes, the letter said that jump in score is what flagged her test, and then they said they did an analysis of who was seated in the room and her answers were closely matched to someone seated near her. She said people were about 5 feet apart. I know my kid did not cheat.
I’m sorry to hear about this added stress to an already stressful time. How do they know that it wasn’t the person seated near your daughter who was the one actually doing the cheating and not your daughter?
That’s what I would love to know as well. This is just awful.
Yeah and the shame of ACT holding all of the cards is that they probably do not grant the number of appeals to equal the number of times even just statistics would say they were wrong, not to mention everything else. But unfortunately if that test is a difference maker in her applications then its easier to retake it (how long do they give her to do it, I would request they wait til February when all of her apps are done and first semester exams are over that is the least they can offer. Sorry this happened to her.
They are only giving her until Nov 4 to respond with a decision and then the test is scheduled within a couple of weeks. There is so much riding on this, including which schools she applies to, including possible merit given her high score and her academic transcript/grades.
I don’t think you will win an appeal because I’ve never heard of anyone else who has. However, since the test in question was so many months ago, maybe you could request that she retake the test a little later? It seems like they should give her time to prepare. Does she get accommodations over multiple days? My child was able to do multiple day testing last December (not as part of a situation like this…just saying that her testing dates were a week+ after the regularly scheduled test date in mid December.) Maybe the extra time would give your child more of a chance to study. Doesn’t make it right…