"Ellen Willson Hoover drove her high school daughter nearly two hours across state lines this weekend so that she could take the ACT college admissions test.
The family lives in North Carolina, but the only testing center with an available spot was in South Carolina. So the pair packed the family car, made the road trip and even spent the night in a hotel so her daughter would be well rested on test day.
But when they arrived at the testing center on Saturday, they found a note posted on the door informing them – like other shocked families across the United States – that the test was canceled.
‘The ACT scheduled for today (7/18) has been CANCELED,’ the sign read. ‘ACT should have contacted you. We are very sorry if you were not notified.’
Hoover said they didn’t receive a phone call, email or text message informing them of the cancellation, and the list of canceled or rescheduled tests on ACT’s website wasn’t updated until later that day.
ACT did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment." …
https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/42385815/for-many-students-who-tried-to-take-the-act-test-this-weekend-it-was-a-total-fail
Wow. A new low from a company with a history of shabby treatment of its customers.
We were caught up in this. My daughter’s testing site was closed, with no notice (and not even a note on the door). We waited for an hour, along with about 50 other families before someone discovered that the ACT had posted a cancellation list on their website Saturday morning. It is really reprehensible that they failed to notify people. I just don’t understand how they could not have known in advance that these sites wouldn’t be available. She was scheduled to take the test in Virginia and there were no changes in COVID-19 operating/opening criteria in Virginia over the last few weeks.
Also makes me wonder if jumping through hoops to get a score even matters as this point. If colleges on a particular student’s list flat out say they are TO and are going to practice holistic admissions this fall then why start studying again for another test that might be cancelled? I’ll tell you one thing this family is not doing is driving some insane number of hours to go to a testing center. At this point, that is not a guarantee and I would be livid if we went so far out of our way to have D test and it was cancelled.
Colleges say they are test optional – but the problem is that for students with mediocre grades and good testing abilities, the test isn’t really optional.
Well, it depends. If the student has schools on the list that match up with their ‘mediocre’ grades then they should be able to apply TO.
OTOH, if they are trying to use a relatively higher test score to help them get into a more selective school than their grades alone would suggest, then you are right, they need a test score, and a strong one at that.
The question that strategy raises…why does a student with mediocre grades want to go to a more selective college than their three year academic record would suggest?
This might make sense for some students with a strong upward grade trend and/or with high course rigor, but probably not a good idea for many students with mediocre grades for three years.