We were told a 6 point increase.
My son only had a 4 point increase. We chose to submit documentation by ACT’s deadline date two months ago and just got the letter this week notifying him that it wasn’t sufficient proof and his scores would be cancelled. Again he has the options to either agree to have his scores cancelled, retake a private test that they schedule or pay the $200 fee for arbitration. My son is ready to give up but I’m not because I feel that is what ACT relies on and wins the majority of the time. I don’t want them to be able to continue doing this to more students and their families but like a lot of others, I don’t have the means to afford an attorney, again what ACT relies on. Can’t someone out there help us get a class action lawsuit so we can stop them from continuing to do this or inform all the colleges and universities that require this test for admission??
We just received the response from ACT. They are not dropping the case. Of course. Nothing that we submitted on our daughter’s character, letters from teachers and tutors, transcripts of academic achievement, difficult family circumstances (death in the family during the time she was taking the test and could not retake 3rd time), consistency in the different areas (she mostly improved in English and Reading) matters. Nothing!
They gave us 10 days (only) to choose from the same 3 options - cancel the score, private retake, arbitration. They are asking to sign the Submission Agreement for the arbitration. Is it required? Can we file directly with AAA?
Sounds like we are in the same boat with you HURT OK MOM. What did you decide to do? It seems as nothing you provide works. If they drop one case, they will have to lose all. I am not an attorney, the language in their letters is confusing and their reasoning is not logical and often contradicting. We are exhausted and so upset by this unfair investigation.
@ktrrights thank you so much for bringing awareness to such a flawed system. Our son received a letter last week and is completed deflated he is being accused of cheating. Unlike your daughter our son does struggle with standardized testing and test anxiety. His first test he scored a 16 and second test a 24. We were shocked but so proud of him. We immediately sought out to fight this accusation and he wrote his letter to declare the validity of his test results. After reading the lengths that you and many others have gone through to fight these accusations I see it a waist of our time to submit the require documents to seek approval of his scores. On the flip side I feel that option 1 (agree to tossing his score) or 2 (retake in a private test setting) is submitting to guilt. I 100% believe he is being honest. He says 2 proctors were present and he did not know any students in the test room. In his letter to the ACT he stated how unprepared and nervous he was for his first test. Between the 2 test he took a prep course and was better prepared mentally, much more relaxed, and took his time to answer questions. Did I understand correctly if he retakes and happens to score an even higher score they will only allow him as high as the 24 they are saying he cheated to get? Any guidance would be appreciated. At this point we are still going to submit all paperwork to defend his score and schedule him to retest at the soonest date possible. My fear is the stress and worry of these accusations will take a toll on his him. All trust and faith in the ACT is void and I do not trust them to administer a fair test in a private retest.
Do not give up!! My daughter was accused because her score went up 6 points after taking a review course twice. That was 48 hours of classroom time plus practice tests on her own. She received the letter in April 2019 (6 months after the test) and three weeks before high school graduation. The ACT’s tactics are despicable.
We sent the first round of evidence ( she had some medical issues plus an extremely ill family member and test anxiety). They did not accept and gave us the standard choices. We chose arbitration, but I also sent a letter with our decision requesting the entire Review Panel file including but not limited to the seating chart, original test booklet and any scratch paper and answer sheet for my daughter as well as the “Source Examinee’s” test and answer booklet.
They provided the information and gave us the choice after looking through the file to continue with arbitration or send additional information for the review panel to consider when they reconvened.
I sent a letter going point by point disputing their reasons why they felt her score was invalid. She was seated next to the “Source Examinee” but they were on her left ( she is right handed) and the proctor was sitting directly to the right of her. We pointed out how impossible it would to copy to the extent they accused and not be noticed continually looking to her left. Our original information had an email from the proctor saying she would have reported anything immediately if she had seen anything unusual.
Our original information included contact information for the proctor, the teacher whose classroom was used to verify the set up, the review course teacher and doctor. I pointed out that none of these people were contacted and we did not see how a fair “investigation” could be done when those involved were not even contacted.
I also used their data against them. There analysis showed she erased 13 time and changed her response to 11 identical answers as the “Source” but only one of the identical was the identical incorrect answer. They were punishing her for going back as time allowed and getting the correct answers ( she was taught in her review course to pick a logical answer and move on and then go back if she didn’t know the answer. We provided the test methods from the review course material to explain erasures) Her scratch work showed she did four times more math computations in her scratch work that resulted in the correct answer than “Source”. So that proved she was actually working the problems and the “Source” was not.
The ACT’s historical similarity analysis showed that the identical responses between my daughter and the “Source” actually fell right in line with or below the maximum number of identical responses in their random pair analysis which consisted of over 2,000 pairs. So their own data proved it can and does happen.
The poster in this threat with the user name ktrrights is a great source. I used a lot of his arguments and wording.
We got a letter August 2019 that her scores were valid and no further action would be taken. They also wished her continued success in her education - what jerks! They essentially ruined her last three weeks of high school and had a cloud hanging over her first few weeks of college because if cancelled she would have lost scholarship money.
I did all of this on my own with no legal help or guidance except what I read on this thread. So don’t give up!! It can be done!! It just takes enough pissed off parents to take them down.
Addition to my first post - the ACT sighted Langston vs ACT and Scott vs Educational Testing Services where courts basically ruled that they can cancel scores without proof of wrong doing. I sighted New York Supreme Court case Cortale vs Educational Testing Services which sided with the examinee calling into question ETS’s reliance on statistical analysis of pattern of erasure and identical incorrect answers to invalidate scores. It also called into question the reliability of ETS’s investigation policies suggesting that ETS tends to ignore submissions offered by examinees as support of their questioned scores. In my letter, I pointed out they did not contact our sources of information and also pointed out all the flaws in their statistical analysis. My daughter and the “source” fell directly in line with their statistical analysis of identical correct and incorrect answers of random pairs.
Sounds like ACT is just nailing kids with score improvements. If they are disregarding their own statistical analysis, that’s not a good sign that they are attempting to get the investigation right. Or are they bothering to investigate at all? Perhaps this is a way to punish those did some test prep in between the real test (as thousands tend to do). Or who might have blown off their “mandatory” in-class test because they already have a great score for college. Of all the nerve.
“Her scratch work showed she did four times more math computations in her scratch work that resulted in the correct answer than “Source”. So that proved she was actually working the problems and the “Source” was not.”
- This type of detailed probing obviously is a great idea. ACT might be penalizing both kids when one actually has some supporting evidence of copying and the other doesn't. Too bad the parents have to do this leg work for ACT. You can bet that WON'T happen if kid is actually a cheater LOL.
This guilty till proven otherwise approach - when ACT is the gatekeeper to higher ed outcomes - is reprehensible.
They are targeting increased scores. My daughter and the “Source” had the same composite score, but the “Source” increased their scores “consistently” over the four or five tests they took ( meaning a point or two increase at a time) so their scores were not questioned. The fact is if you spend the money for review courses and work your tail off to increase the score - they will try to invalidate it. They don’t like the fact that it is possible to study for the test and do well.
Like others, I have stumbled across this thread and am shocked.
My D20 has a learning disability. She took the ACT the first time with no accommodations. She had extended time accommodation for the second test and her score improved 7 points. Still not in the stratosphere, but respectable enough for college applications and she is done re-testing. This was in the spring.
Do we now have to wait for the ax to fall? Or will the difference of accommodations explain it? Has anyone whose scores were challenged had this situation?
This is really depressing.
Just wanted to say that it doesn’t always happen- my D’s score jumped 8 points between her first two testings. She went in blind and without the needed math the first time and then did a ton of practice tests for timing and had taken two college math classes by the second test. For whatever reason, flags are only raised randomly.
Hi @milgymfam ,
How long ago did your D take the test? Maybe it just hasn’t hit the fan yet? Sounds like some people are hearing up to a year later!
Her last test was well over a year ago.
Has anyone taken the “private retest”
Would like to hear how that went. I almost feel that our only option is to to take it privately. Sounds like many of you have fought and have been unsuccessful. Such a sad situation.
Jennifer2 - glad to hear your daughter did well with accommodations.
This thread is scary, and the situations are awful. I feel for the families here. But please realize that almost **2 million kids ** take the ACT each year. I keep thinking how if it were more common to happen, we’d all be hearing much more about it. I’d be very interested to hear what percentage of scores are challenged actually.
At this point, save any correspondence, and don’t worry. And well done to your daughter.
@Jennifer2 at #491 - for whatever reason, ACT can delay the notification. That’s where it’s particularly slimy. College Board has many problems, but it does seem to notify students within weeks (not months) when there is a testing irregularity. For lack of a more valid reason, families are left to believe that ACT is strong-arming the kid so they re-test instead of fight the score challenge. The timing for many couldn’t be worse: 18 months after the test, right around grad time, etc.
However, it’s true that you can have a score increase w/o a challenge. My D took her first ACT in April 2015 and her second in early June (I think I have those months correct - at any rate it was the very next administration). In the meantime she hit the books on Math and Science which were her lowest scores. She ended up increasing her composite by 4 points, her math by 2 points and her Science by 9 points! (26 to 35). She was never flagged. The other sections remained the same or improved a point. Science was a goofy section in those days; also, the complaints from families seemed to begin trickling in the following year so maybe she tested right before this current crackdown started to get underway. Or maybe she showed enough scratch work and no one was cheating off her.
@OneMadMom’s testimony strongly suggests that cheating was, indeed, going on. And right in front of the proctor, apparently! Her daughter was the victim. It wouldn’t have taken much additional effort for ACT to figure that one out, but sometimes kids do go in there agreeing to let one cheat off the other so it’s not as easy as it would seem to figure out what truly went on. It would take some investigation to flush all that out. It’s unfortunate and ACT is acting pretty slimy by delaying notification till you are really out of options. But in all of this clearly justified frustration with ACT, we can’t forget that it’s the culture of cheating that is driving these incidents.
BTW, these notifications are very common. @8056ah at #493, my son personally knows a few high scoring kids who opted to retake. One of them was a 35 and when she retook she scored another 35. In her case, the test was very easy so she just figured this was the best way to handle the situation.
I would think retaking the test is almost always the easiest way to handle it-4 hours of your time, but then it is over, compared to all these other efforts. I expect that if one had a SAT score taken about the same time and in the same range ( which despite some outliers, similarity in score results between SAT and ACT actually is the norm), that might be sufficient too.
Retaking the test would be “easy” if they notified you right after the test. My daughter took the test that was questioned in Oct of her senior year and was notified on April 30 of her senior year just three weeks before graduation. It had been six months since her intensive preparation. She has severe test anxiety- to the point of shortness of breath and racing heart. So expecting someone three week from graduating, six months from studying to go in and perform under the pressure of clearing your name is unreasonable.
^ ACT is really obligated to notify the student within a timely manner. There should be some sort of “statute of limitations.”
Agreed, notification should be within a reasonable time. The results just have to be within 3 points or so of the contested score? Unpleasant but for most I would think it better than the alternatives and far more likely to be successful. One does not forget all the information one learned in preparation. And while my kids too had test anxiety, tests are a fact of life in education and even beyond and avoiding them wasn’t possible or appropriate.