Disgusted with ACT

S21 took ACT in February 2020 just to get a baseline. Dumb luck. Fast forward to fall applications.

He applied to Penn State early hoping to get accepted early and take some pressure off. We sent his score towards the end of July and applied around August 1. The credit card was charged. Penn State still has not received them. They’re asking for the specific day they were sent so they can look. Sounds like an easy solution.

We’ve called the ACT and sent numerous emails for the past week with no response. When you call you get some message that “due to high volume and weather issues we aren’t accepting phone calls”. Click. At a loss on what to do.

Oh…and can’t send them again. When I click on the “Send Report” button I can’t select Penn State again because they’ve already been sent there. Ugh!

This is unfortunate. I wonder if you could scan/send a copy of the results to the University which may be easier to contact than the ACT?

They only accept scores from ACT but that was a good idea.

Would your son’s guidance counselor be willing to vouch for his scores (assume they got to his high school) until ACT can get itself straightened out. ACT hasn’t been functional all summer, and I don’t expect that to change in the next few months.

Many colleges let kids self-report and send the scores upon enrollment. I don’t know whether Penn State is one of them, but in light of the pandemic, it seems reasonable to ask them to consider it.

Could there be an issue with your S’s name being different on the ACT registration vs. what Penn State is looking for?

Can you send the ACT score to another Penn State system campus? This could work if they all share score reports, like the UCs.

Edited to add:

It looks like PSU does want you to self-report test scores thru the SRAR but then want the official scores too. https://admissions.psu.edu/apply/srar/tutorial/

They do want the official scores as well as self-reported.

The names match but they also used birthday and some wildcard searches with no luck.

Good idea about sending to the other campuses. I’ll ask about that.

Thanks for some good suggestions.

@chmcnm D20 had the same problem at 3 different state schools throughout the country; one was our own state flagship. In each case the scores were “lost” in the school system and took several emails/calls between D20 and the IT departments to locate and link the scores. She was so frustrated; it definitely changed her view of the schools. If I remember correctly, I think they eventually “found” her scores by doing queries with the ACT transmission verification numbers.

We had trouble with this three cycles ago. The ACT scores that were directly sent to the schools arrived before her application so there was a problem on the school’s end “connecting” it with her application file. We were able to have her guidance counselor send the high school’s report until they found them. (And they were found in all cases and was the fault of the colleges, not the ACT).

We have been waiting weeks for replies to our many emails- nothing.
Daughters site history is wiped clean- she was signed up for test and reschedule 3 x, then they rescheduled her test site from Massachusetts to OHIO. Can’t reach a person by phone either. Thoroughly disgusted, just want to cancel test and we can’t

Email the acting CEO, Janet Godwin, at janet.godwin@act.org. She responds, although two weeks later, the ACT still hasn’t fixed our account.

I decided to call again. This time I chose option #2 for international students. Bingo. Not disconnected. Waited about 20 minutes and talked to an actual person. Do not take option #1 for US students. Got the info I needed but still no idea if that will help. Follow-up with PSU next.

I also emailed the CEO. She replied within a day. Resolved another small issue via email. Still waiting to see if she answers our main question that the customer rep from above conversation answered.

Another update. ACT re-sent scores yesterday. Hopefully will show-up at PSU within a few days. Emailing the CEO seemed to get the ball rolling. I’m glad the issue is hopefully getting resolved but shouldn’t have been this difficult. I hope ACT gets their act (no pun) together soon otherwise they might become irrelevant very quickly.

Last update. Scores arrived at PSU. 6 weeks to resolve. Decision by Dec. 24th. Was hoping sooner, especially since we sent scores in August 1st. Good luck to everyone else with testing this fall.

I am seeking advice on the ACT as well. I empathize…

Advice on what? Unless it’s regarding the original post of this topic, you’ll be better off creating a new thread and better explaining the help you seek.

Closing thread for that reason.