Thanks @WDCMom. Yes, i’m getting conflicting info from the ACT. On phone with them again and frankly the people that answer the calls really don’t know about the test reports at all. The people I have spoken to are very helpful, but they had no idea about the suit, what is on the test reports and what will, or won’t be reported. ( One even tried to tell me that it really wouldn’t matter because public colleges are required by law to give accommodations! She was kind but really didn’t get it).
I guess my advice if anyone has a student who has not yet taken the test, just make sure you check your student’s profile prior to them taking the test. Do not fill in the student profile section, and tell them not to do it when they sit for the test. This information is not used to help the student in any way, and could possibly be used against them.
Can anyone tell what year they started this practice? One of my kids had accommodations, one didn’t. This just gave me an opportunity to explain the concept of a class action suit to my kid.
I think people have differing feels about personal data. As long as nothing that is against privacy laws is occurring individuals should be able to make up their own minds about how much data they share. I would not assume the data is being used by colleges for anything nefarious and would guess it’s being used to send kids who list their college information about the college as well as kids who list peer institutions and/or fit their target and use the data to send information. I would guess that sensitive information is being aggregated and could be useful by colleges for planning purposes. I see it much like recruiters operate,shifting through LinkedIn data and other data and reaching out to candidates for jobs. Happens to me all the time from my on-line work related data.
I’m guessing ACT considers it a nuisance lawsuit because of the release that gets signed and the prior agreement not to flag individual score reports and these class action cases move slowly… But time will tell with this class action suit if they bent or broke the law regarding “flagging” or disclosing information without permission.
Interesting. They are clearly advertising to colleges that data they will provide information on learning disabilities. It is also very interesting that the information filled out at the school before testing (student input) trumps the information filled out when signing up to take the test (often parent involved). This sure feels like an intentional and flagrant violation of the ADA.
Their defense is that the student ‘opted out’. Again, the argument to this is that these students are minors, the language is confusing, and most importantly that the proctors ACT employs are not consistent and educated in administering the school profile. The process for ‘opting in’ should occur when a student registers for the test. Their data should not ‘trump’ their registration information by offering information prior to testing without parental involvement.
I don’t think there is any data provided on test day. I called ACT and asked them about this and they said the only data provided is during the registration process. My son is hearing impaired and I was wondering if he had indicated that in his profile, but he had left that question blank. I now wonder if he had a chance to answer that question again on test day, but he does not remember completing any forms on test day, and ACT claims there are no additional questions on test day. I also have not seen any reference to test day questions in any of the articles thus far.
There is a slew of information on the government website about what can and cannot be shared about a high school student to a college specifically with regard to IEDs and such I recall. I wonder if the government guidelines on this trump an “opt-in.” Actually in this day and age learning about opt in and opt out is a good lesson to earn at a very young age - I’m sure my kids skim as fast as they can over data privacy disclaimers and the such.
@WineLover I agree… I do not think there is data that is filled out on test day. It may be the same stuff like name, address, high school, but they don’t have the time to sit there and answer a bunch of questions.
“The ACT Inc. collects voluntary self-reported student data when students register for an ACT as well as on the Student Information Form that students complete before an official testing administration”
I am curious about whether the students are actually asked to do the interest inventory again on test day. I asked my son and he doesn’t remember answering any profile/interest questions on either of the 2 test days he took the ACT.
"As for information on students, he said that “ACT’s general policy is to provide individually identifiable information to a third party only at the direction of the individual or after the individual has been provided notice and an opportunity to opt out of such sharing.”
When they say provide, that means sell, and opportunity to opt-out means the default is opt-in. If there were no questions on disability, this would be legal, although not really looking out for the best interests of their customers (students). The ADA/504 though could make this a legal issue for the ACT.
Does anyone know if the score report specifies exactly what disability the student has, or is it simply yes or no for under physical/learning disability? The sample report shared by ACT has “no” for an answer, but not sure if the answer is yes whether there is additional data on the type of disability shared. https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/2017-18-College-Rpt-sample-data.pdf
@2mrmagoo I am going to print that now and ask my son. What I can tell you is that my daughter got into highly selective schools and we never paid attention to what she put on her “inventory” of items. In fact I went back to check on her ACT account what she put for location and the 2 states she put are not even the states of the school she got into and now goes. I think too many people are freaking out on this inventory stuff. The only ones that should care are ones that checked the disability - if in fact it ends up being reported and used by a particular college.
@2mrmagoo my son does not remember filling this out. He took the test beginning of junior year, so I am sure his answers would be different than they are today. I am not sure what the ACT claims they use for the college reporting if a student filled this exact thing out online during registration and then was asked the same exact thing on the paper booklet. Which trumps which? Doesn’t make any sense. what is act telling people…which do they use? What I do know is that he does not have any disability so that answer is a NO regardless if he changed preferences on major, location, school size etc. Again, based on my older child, I do not think the answers are that big of an influencer on college AOs - she was accepted at many selective Top 15 schools.
For those who are interested, you can order a copy of the ACT report for your student that is sent to colleges. Again, the college report has additional information than the report sent to the student/student’s school. To order this, instead of inputting a ‘college code’ input the code ‘7000’. Make sure this report is addressed to the student’s home. I didn’t realized that the default address was my son’s school, and ended up having to order a second copy.
I’ll report back once I receive it to let you know if it has information regarding DS’s disability that was added (by my son) on the test day or if removing it from the profile prior to ordering the report was sufficient.
Colleges may have a clue that accommodations were given even if ACT doesn’t tell them because some applications ask for the date the test was administered. Tests with accommodations might be administered on a different day.
