@mamma1st thanks for the link. Makes me feel better about my son’s 23 essay score given his 34 composite. The entire college app process is so messed up!
Has anyone tried to have an essay rescored beyond the 3 month time frame? I recently found this thread and similar info and was considering trying to have my daughter’s earlier essay rescored. (October 2015). Why didn’t we discover CC earlier?!
^Better late than never. Do use all of the forums (start with the “Parents” forum, and avoid the “chance” forum which is kids-only).
You will throw away $50. If they say 90 days, then its 90 days.
@suzyQ7 That’s what I figured! Just thought maybe someone else had tried…I guess we’ll have to decide whether D retakes ACT, or sticks with her SAT scores.
What was the essay score?
@suzyQ7 She received a 20 on the essay. 36 in English and 33 in reading. She’s usually strong in writing. This was first attempt at ACT, though, so there’s time to retake if needed. I just feel bad that we missed an opportunity to have it checked. I didn’t realize it was even possible. Oh well. First child learning curve!
@suzyQ7 I have tried posting this 3 times! Sorry! Her essay score was 20. English 36, Reading 33, Science 31, Math 29. Oh well.
This is awful. I hope they figure this out asap.
I got a 34 composite with a 24 writing, same as @sleepdeprived2, on the April ACT. It was my first time taking it, but I thought my essay was quite good. My mom doesn’t think it’s worth it to re-score. Are there any must-have things that are commonly not included?
Ask for a rescore asap.
@pschnee I tried to have it restored and they told me I was too late. I wish I had know about CC after we got our December scores.
Me too @jeepgirl , but I really wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not even something that is remotely close to making or breaking a college admissions decision.
I don’t have personal experience with this but is just seems like if you think something doesn’t make sense, then question it right away. Most of the posters in this thread seem to have done well in reading and English and poorly on the essay (even though they thought they did well on the essay.). To me that’s a red flag that should be questioned.
If you feel strongly that your essay was incorrectly graded there’s really no risk in having it re-scored. If your feeling was correct and your grade improves, there’s no fee.
DD scored 36 in both english and writing but only a 17 in the essay… Finding it hard to believe that the essay score is accurate. Will definitely be requesting a rescore. Thank you for making me aware theough this thread that we could do this
I was one of the early posters on this thread. My son had a 36 and 35 in writing and english and a 22 on the essay. We had his essay re-scored and it only went up 1 point (but got our $50 back). My son has absolutely horrendous handwriting - terrible terrible. I have heard from a college counselor that ACT seems to penalize students for bad handwriting. Could the explanation be that simple?
@tedandfranks I just got my daughter’s score this morning, and the numbers were similar to your kids, and she has bad handwriting, as well.
I am really kicking myself for advising her to take the writing portion. Such a huge mistake on my part as a parent-she’s a fantastic writer, and has earned awards for it (and 5s on AP tests), but evidently scribbly handwriting equals mediocre scoring for the ACT. As a published writer myself, as well as a copy editor and someone who is occasionally asked to score essays for competitions, I know her work is solid.
Currently weighing our options. On the one hand, I think whoever was assigned to read her essay couldn’t deal with the bad penmanship and that may not change with a rescore. On the other hand, this evidently seems to be such a problem that the adcoms may not even look at it, other than to say “wow, there’s another kid with a bad essay score and a great composite score, ACT is really off”.
The ACT is changing its scoring methodology for the essay: http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/Writing-Test-Score-Change-news-release-June-2016.pdf
Compass is already up with detailed reports. I think they have an office in Iowa City. ACT is in Iowa City…
http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/act-writing-scores-explained/ and http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/act-abandons-writing-scale/. Apparently they are not friends of the essay.
@MotherOfDragons – might seem like a silly question but have you looked to see which, if any, schools on your daughter’s list want to see the essay? My DD has one school on her list asking for it, so, she took it. Unfortunately, results were less than stellar and no change with rescore request. I still wouldn’t hesitate to ask for a rescore…some on this site have had amazing success with it.