Should I Apply With My Act Score or Wait and Take It Again

No college awarding is complete without exam scores. Simply sending scores to colleges doesn't have to be a disruptive and frustrating process! Read this article to understand all the options for sending out your ACT scores, to get help with the many decisions you will have to make, and to know what to practise if yous see issues.

I'll describe the bones procedure of how to transport ACT scores, how to take total advantage of the ACT's individual score reporting, when to send scores, and how to make sure your scores don't get lost. At the same time, I'll become through the pros and cons of every choice and suggest a recommended course of activeness.

How to Send Your ACT Scores: 2 Methods

You can send your Human action scores either when you accept the test or any fourth dimension later on you lot become your scores.

Method i: Utilize Your Iv Free Score Reports

From the time you register for the Human activity until noon Central Fourth dimension the Th afterward your test engagement, you lot accept the option of sending out four free score reports to colleges or scholarship programs. However, this means you'll be sending your scores without having actually seen them.

Whether you should accept this free reports offer really depends on your circumstances:

• Pros: These 4 reports are costless, then yous'll save some money.

• Cons: You won't be able to take advantage of the ACT score choice policy (more on this later). In other words, instead of getting to pick and cull which of your scores colleges will run across, your test results will exist sent to colleges even if you do worse than y'all expect.

Recommendation: I recommend using the free reports to send scores to colleges that require you to transport all your ACT scores.

Method ii: Lodge Additional Score Reports

You lot tin can also send your ACT scores any time after y'all receive them past logging into your ACT account or past sending in an order form for additional score reports. In your account, you tin see your scores from all ACTs you've taken and create reports of these scores for colleges to encounter.

Hither'due south our advice about whether you lot should ship ACT scores after you've seen them:

• Pros: You can customize each score report to have only the examination dates you lot want to send to colleges. This lets yous take advantage of Deed score choice (again, I'll tell yous all about this a little farther downward).

• Cons: Each score report costs $sixteen(even for students eligible for fee waivers), and each study can only accept one examination appointment and one higher on it. For example, sending ane exam score to 10 schools costs $160, while sending four test scores to one school costs $64. If yous request these score reports over the phone rather than electronically or by mail, there's an additional $15 phone fee, likewise.

Here are some of our recommendations on when to send additional score reports:

• Ship scores with your best section results to colleges that superscore the ACT . These schools will brand a new composite score for you lot using your best English, Math, Reading, and Science scores from whatsoever ACTs you took.

• Send your single highest score to colleges that neither superscore nor require all your scores, to Human action scholarship programs, and to the NCAA if you lot are going to play higher sports.

Can You Send Old ACT Scores?

To send ACT scores from any exam taken before September 1, 2018, you lot have to request them from the ACT archives. Each regular archived study costs $41(including a nonrefundable $26 archived scores fee).

Here are three options for ordering older ACT scores:

• Asking your scores online by creating an Human activity account .

• Ship in a asking form (if you can call up your estimate test year, ACT, Inc., tin cheque a range of years in their records for you) or a letter of request (if you tin can't remember) to the following address:
  • Human activity Customer Care — Score Reports
  • PO Box 451
  • Iowa City, IA 52243-0451

• Call Act, Inc., at (319) 337-1313. Notation that yous can but order regular reports this way—no priority reports. In addition, there is an extra $15 phone service fee.

Pro Tip: Some Q&A websites claim that you lot tin impress out your scores from the ACT website and postal service or fax them to colleges as a way of sending scores for free. If only! Unfortunately, the vast bulk of colleges only have score reports sent by ACT, Inc. What'southward more, most colleges only take electronic scores through Deed's special service.

Information technology didn't work when you tried to mail your baby brother abroad when you were iv, and information technology won't work now for your Human action scores.

Can You Choose Which ACT Scores to Ship?

Because of the way the Act score ordering process is structured—yous become to option which score or scores to send to which colleges— their policy ends up being virtually identical to the Higher Board's Score Selection policy for the Saturday . (The Act doesn't phone call information technology Score Pick, but I volition for the sake of simplicity.)

Let's say you took the Human activity twice. The first time you lot took information technology you were getting over the flu and having a terrible mean solar day. The basic idea of ACT Score Choice is that you tin send just your second test score to your target colleges and pretend your showtime exam didn't even happen.

Hither are some of the major pros and cons of ACT Score Option:

Pros

• Score Choice is awesome for colleges that don't want to see all your Act scores.

• It'southward also perfect for colleges that superscore —y'all tin ship your schools just those examination dates that have your highest department scores.

• It'due south also the all-time way to transport your highest score to scholarship programs and the NCAA.

Cons

• You have to be careful and read your target colleges' score submission policies carefully. Failing to ship all your ACT scores to colleges that crave all of them could jeopardize your application!

• Because each score report tin can only have i college and one score on it, sending out many reports can get really expensive fast.

The hot, new "make it rain" rap video montage accompaniment? A stack of envelopes from ACT, Inc.

When Should You Send Your Human action Scores?

Now, let'southward talk about the all-time times to send your ACT scores to schools.

Should You Send ACT Scores Early on?

Some students take heard that sending ACT scores early (possibly even in your junior year!) shows colleges that you're a very interested applicant.

It's truthful that at that place is such a thing as demonstrated interest —admissions committees sometimes desire to see proof that an applicant sincerely wants to go to their school. But demonstrated involvement only comes into play afterwards your full awarding has been submitted, usually equally a way to move someone up on a waitlist.

In any case, sending Act scores early will not give you an edge or constitute demonstrated interest. Generally, if you transport scores to a college only oasis't applied there yet, the admissions committee will simply salvage them under your name in a general file until your application shows upwards. They don't go on track of whose scores get there commencement.

And information technology's not only that: if you lot ship your scores early but are yet planning to retake the Human action, you won't get the full benefit of Score Choice since you won't be able to cull between that early score and ones from later tests.

Sending scores early enough for Neanderthals to receive them won't requite you a leg up.

When Should Deed Scores Go to Colleges?

It'll be no surprise to hear that official score reports should exist received by each university'south respective application deadline. In order to effigy out what this means in terms of when to transport your Human activity scores, permit's go through the timing of everything that happens after you lot take the test.

Step 1: ACT, Inc., Scores Your Test

• This unremarkably takes ten days for multiple-selection scores (but can take up to eight weeks).

• It takes an extra two weeks for Writing scores (if you took the ACT with Writing).

• It also takes an extra ane to ii weeks if you took the exam outside the Usa or Canada (on top of the extra two weeks for Writing).

Step ii: Score Reports Are Posted Online and Processed for Sending

• Scores are posted online equally before long as multiple-pick results are ready (and Writing results are added two weeks later on when they are finished). Nonetheless, if you lot tested through Country and Commune, School, or DANTES Testing, you'll only meet your scores online after getting your printed score study in the mail.

• If you lot registered for the 4 costless score reports, these are sent out as soon as your total score report (multiple choice plus Writing, if you took the latter every bit well) is ready.

• Any score reports ordered through the ACT website have about one week of processing before being sent to colleges. So don't wait until the terminal infinitesimal to request boosted reports!

Step 3: Colleges Receive ACT Scores

• Most colleges become Human action scores electronically. The schools themselves determine how often they receive scores. The least frequent possibility is in one case every two weeks, though nearly schools choose to receive scores far more ofttimes (for example, UVA gets them daily).

• A pocket-sized number of colleges receive paper score reports sent by fantabulous postal service. These are normally delivered within a few days.

• Recall that there will be a lag between when a college gets your scores and when it adds them to your awarding file.

In most circumstances, the math for ordering the test goes like this:

one week for ordering scores + 1 calendar week for colleges to go and file scores = y'all need to order at least 2 weeks before the application deadline

Just in instance, all the same, it's best to ship ACT scores as before long as you're done testing and are sure which schools you're applying to.

Your last possible test-date math looks like this:

ii weeks for scoring multiple selection + ii weeks for scoring Writing + 3 weeks for ordering tests = accept your last exam no later on than 7 weeks before the application borderline

Sending your scores is the synchronized swimming of higher applications: to do it well, yous take to master perfect timing.

What If Your ACT Scores Make it After the Application Deadline?

What happens to applications when ACT scores are received late ultimately depends on each higher'southward individual policy.

Some schools accept a hard-and-fast dominion that belatedly application materials disqualify applicants. For case, the University of Texas's policy even overrides the guaranteed access this state school offers to any in-states students in the top 10% of their class.

At some schools, late ACT scores are a gamble —you're betting that your application won't be considered until further into the procedure, so your scores might accept a risk to get there.

For example, here's what Stanford'southward admissions site warns in regard to belatedly scores:

"We cannot filibuster the review of an application in apprehension of scores that will arrive after the deadline nor can we guarantee that late [ACT] scores volition exist reviewed."

Meanwhile, UVA points out what happens if your scores are belatedly :

"In that location is a adventure that we will have already started the [sic] review your file before those scores go far. You should withal send those scores. ... There's a chance that the scores will be seen at some point in the procedure."

Finally, some schools judge each awarding on a case-by-case basis. This means that an otherwise first-class application might exist put aside until Human action scores go far, while an application that'south clearly non a adept fit for the school might be rejected even earlier scores make it.

Yet better than being belatedly for the Queen of Hearts and her "off with your head" policy.

How Can Y'all Make Sure Your ACT Scores Don't Get Lost?

The top reasons colleges can't find your Act scores are as follows:

• You lot entered the wrong ACT higher code
• You lot forgot to send your scores to that particular higher

If you registered for the four complimentary score reports, you lot can check your own score report for the lawmaking numbers you put in and confirm they're correct. If you lot ordered reports from the Human action website, go to your account and double-check the higher codes there.

A good rule of thumb is to look three weeks subsequently your sending date to bank check whether your scores have been received. Ordinarily, this info will be available on the college's application site. In other cases, colleges might contact you to permit you lot know which application materials take not yet arrived.

If y'all get a notice from the college that your Human action scores are missing, don't panic: information technology can take a few weeks for received application materials to be logged. Chances are, the school has indeed received your scores but simply hasn't filed them notwithstanding. Feel costless to phone call the admissions function and calmly and respectfully ask them to cheque whether your scores take arrived.

If your Act scores don't turn upwardly—whether considering they got lost in the mail, were somehow electronically derailed, or were but misfiled—yous can still resend your scores by ordering new reports from the ACT website.

If she's facing away from Lost, does that mean she's going to Found? Deep thoughts.

What's Next?

Is your ACT score good enough? Learn what an excellent Human activity score is for your summit-choice schools , and get a first-person guide to getting a perfect 36.

Studying for an Human activity retake? Acquire how to terminate running out of time on Math and Reading, and check out our complete guide to Human action Science.

Want to blow off a little steam? Here are five fun facts about the Deed. Maybe one will help you win that coveted pink Trivial Pursuit wedge!

Disappointed with your Act scores? Desire to improve your Deed score by 4+ points? Download our free guide to the top v strategies you demand in your prep to better your ACT score dramatically.

Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article!

Almost the Author

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate nigh improving student access to college education.

greenfrid1950.blogspot.com

Source: https://blog.prepscholar.com/important-read-this-before-sending-act-scores-to-colleges

Share this post