On June 2015, I took the ACT with Writing, and I was happy with my score (8/12) . Do I have to take it again? Because only 1 of 4 schools I’m applying to requires the writing portion (all cal states). Do I have to take the writing portion again because I just want to focus mainly on the other stuff.
You should take it again because they use the combined English and Writing components as a rough equivalent to the SAT writing component, and because colleges do not superscore the ACT generally.
And those schools that do superscore the ACT typically will only use ACTs that include the essay.
“Because only 1 of 4 schools I’m applying to requires the writing portion (all cal states)”
What do you mean by that? Are you saying the only schools you are appying to are CSUs. If so you do not need the writing section because the CSU’s neither require nor use the writing section for admission. Also be aware that you need send official ACT scores from the testing agency to only one CSU and then you use a tool provided on the CSU site to provide the score to other CSUs.
If you are actually applying to a college that requyires the ACT w/writing, you should contact that college to ask what it does in the situation where you submit one with writing and one without writing. Colleges usually do not tell you on their websites what they do in that situation and the fact that a college may superscore ACTs does not determine the issue. The issues is whether they will even use at all an ACT without writing when you submit one with writing. Colleges are divided on that issue – some disregard entirely the one without writing (and that includes some colleges that superscore ACTs). Others will actually use the one without writing if it contains higher section scores when superscoring or even use the higher ACT when they don’t usually superstore. Still others will use the one with writing in general but certain colleges in the university may use a specific higher section score from the one without writing (such as the engineering college at the university which may use the higher math score). You will not know the valid answer absent a specific request to the university.
Check if the school requires writing in the same sitting. Many do.