So I’ve taken the ACT 6 times, mainly because of pressure from my parents, but now that I have my score, I want to delete some because I know taking it 6 times is a lot. What’s the implication with schools that require all ACT scores to be sent? If you delete scores, will you automatically be disqualified from acceptance?
Bumping because I’m in a similar (and possibly worse due to the number of times I’ve retaken) situation and would like to know the answer 
Colleges don’t see/receive deleted ACT test scores.
They won’t see them unless you have already sent them if you go through the feet ion process, but for schools that want to see all scores, this seems unethical. Most schools don’t want all scores, so it doesn’t matter for them.
You are not required to send scores that no longer exist in ACT’s records to colleges which require all ACT scores. However, you best make sure after deletion by ACT that the scores no longer exist in your high school record because there are many high schools which send all your scores to colleges as part of your official high school transcript.
^Correct if you entered your high school code and they were sent prior to deleting. If that’s the case, you should contact your GC.
If anyone is wondering, I emailed ACT and they said that colleges will be notifed that scores were deleted, so I guess there’s no point of trying
Colleges to which scores have already been sent will be notified if you delete after that send has been done. Deletion before any scores are sent rremoves the score from your ACT record and ACT provides nothing on it to colleges.
My daughter wants to delete prior ACT scores that weren’t as good as her third attempt. However, I sent the second set of scores free to 3 “safety” schools. She may not apply to 2 of the safety schools. I thought the second set of scores would be better but they were worse. I haven’t sent any scores to her reach or target schools. Some of her reach and target schools require all scores to be sent. Others use score choice. However, I understand that if a score is cancelled it is not sent. Will the “all scores” school be able to tell scores were cancelled?
If a score is actually cancelled, ACT sends notice of such to any school to which the score has already been sent, but it sends nothing to other colleges to which you may send future scores. Note cancellation is not a quick process and it actually takes several weeks to get it done so if she is planning to apply for early action or early decison, she may already be too late to begin the process and get scores deleted before she has to send them. Also note that if the test was taken as part of a state testing mandate, where high school students in the state were taking it to show compliance with no child left behind laws, it cannot be cancelled.
Also, as I noted above, her high school should have the scores and and may include them with any transcript sent to colleges, so you may also need to assure that the score is also removed from her high school record before the transcript is sent, and that process itself may add even more time.
Absent ACT providing the score, the high school sending it, or your daughter actually telling the colleges the score, the colleges will not have access to anything that would even indicate to them that the score ever existed
As to any necessity to delete scores, it depends on how far you are willing to go to put your trust in colleges. All claim when you send multiple tests that they do not use the lower scores against you. The problem is that many applicants just have a hard time convincing themselves that is true.
All schools that require “all scores” specifically tell you not to delete scores and to restore them if you have previously deleted – so not disclosing deleted scores definitely violates their rules. You might be able to do it, but it’s definitely unethical.
As a practical matter, your high school may report how many times the test was taken (my son’s GC told me something about their system (Naviance) populating the Common App with how many times a test was taken and that even the score choice schools would know how many times he took the test). I’ve never seen the Common App form that the GCs complete, but if they’re asked directly, they’re going to disclose – asking them to delete or lie about information that a college specifically asks for is a really bad idea.
I can’t say you’ll definitely get caught, but I’d be careful about assuming that deletion is foolproof. If you want to be really paranoid, you might consider that ACT is constantly selling mailing lists, so your contact information may have been sent multiple times and connected with specific test dates (but you’d probably need Stanford’s resources to keep track of that).