ACT is announcing this morning that it is giving up on the 1-36 scale for writing. Awaiting more details about what this is going to mean for students.
Boy, if I were an adcom I think I’d just disregard the writing scores altogether at this point.
Looks like that is exactly what is going to happen. Can’t imagine an adcom deriving value from this mess.
See http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/act-writing-scores-explained/
and http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/act-abandons-writing-scale/ for more information.
Lmao this isn’t surprising. They have been messing up everyone’s scores it seems.
Oof. General semi-competence is sometimes more dispiriting than downright, conspicuous ineptitude.
I love how they say the change is because of “confusion” among the students about the grading scale while not mentioning that the grades they were slapping on these writing samples were almost completely random. I don’t think it’s the students who are confused.
The scoring is not really changing. ACT is just hiding the true score so that no one complains anymore.
CompassPrep does an excellent job explaining the new scoring system and its fundamental flaws. Definitely read the articles posted above.
In general, it will still be 2 graders, each grading on a 1-6 scale in four different categories.
For example,
Grader 1: 5, 4, 5, 5
Grader 2: 4, 4, 4, 5.
Four scores are 9, 8, 9, 10.
The current scoring system adds those numbers (36) and translates it to a final scaled score of 23. Then people would complain because that 23 on the Essay looks harmful in comparison to Composite scores like C34.
The new scoring system, however, will just take those same four scores (9, 8, 9, 10) and average them to give you your final Essay score: 9.
Who’s really going to complain about getting a 9 on the Essay? It doesn’t look comparable to anything.
But if you reverse the Math, then figure out the scaled score by looking at any Essay conversion chart… it’s still a crappy 23.
Except a 23 is not crappy. Still 80+%ile. https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/Research-Letter-about-ACT-Writing.pdf The problem is it was on a similar type of scale so parents and students tried to equate them. Now it will be on a totally different scale so fewer complaints.
@“Erin’s Dad”, you’re right. 23 is not crappy. It’s 83rd percentile, which is pretty good.
I meant that 23 is viewed as crappy, hence all the complaining.
Most colleges don’t put much stock into the ACT essay score, anyway. Most just want to see it as a real writing sample from a student. The 1-36 was a mess, but at least the ACT’s admitting that a change needs to be made (unlike another major test whose first letter is “S” and last letter is “T”).
The website CLEARLY stated, “the writing score does not affect the composite in ANY way”. How hard is this to understand?