***February 2016 ACT Discussion Thread***

I accidentally posted this in the April thread earlier today lol

No idea how this happened, but I got a 25 on writing. My composite was a 36 (35/36/35/36) and I was really happy about having a good single sitting but I guess not. I’d gotten a 29 and 30 on the last 2 writings I took for the last 2 ACT’s and I felt like this one was way better, so I have no idea what happened.

I don’t want to retake this AT ALL, but I’m worried colleges will view this really negatively. Will they? Also, do they often make mistakes with writing? I’m wondering if this is a mistake and I should get it rescored.

@coffeeaddicted – huge congrats to you - I hear that colleges are largely discounted the essay scores. Also some students are requesting re-scores with some success of getting a rise in the score. I would not suggest you take the ACT again.

@coffeeaddicted Are you kidding? You are done! Do not pass go, do not collect $200. You have good writing scores from your last ACTs and the writing doesn’t matter anyway. Forget about it. Congrats. Yes, you could get it rescored (and maybe should) but don’t even consider taking this again.

I got a 27 in writing and got the same as @coffeeaddicted in the last 2… Kind of bummed, but will colleges scrutinize against a 27 in writing?

@brant9297 I would think a 27 is good. Of course I’m biased, but I’d say the difference between a 25 and 27 is significant.

And I just checked the common data sets for some selective colleges and the freshman class writing 25-75 percentile are pretty consistently 8-10, which I understand would be 24-30 in the new scoring. Am I right about that? If so, that’s good news for all of us. However, I might still call them, considering there was a possible mistake. I felt way better about this essay than I did about my 30.

@coffeeaddicted thanks! I spoke to my counselor and asked a Yale alumni and they told me not to worry about my writing bc elite colleges don’t really care so much about writing. Basically, they that ACT/SAT writing does not accurately represent writing ability–you will never have only 40 minutes to write a well thought out and organized essay in college. Based on that, that is good news for all of us, especially 34-36 (99th percentile) since our composite will more accurately represent us.

I freaked out on my writing and english bc I felt like I completely underperformed!

@brant9297 yeah, and many of us will have taken AP Lang and gotten good AP scores, and written college essays that are ultimately much better indicators of writing competence than an ACT essay.

Still registered… FWIW, this mom thinks you guys are pretty awesome. Imagine how cool it would be if even a quarter of our country’s youth cared so much about their future.

Has anyone gotten their scores yet this morning? Still registered…

Still registered, as are others from the same testing center.

Still “registered” for my daughter’s scores too.

If you request a rescore for the writing section is the ACT allowed to lower your score? Also how successful are people on raising their score on the re-score?

@jakeolsen11 They will not lower your score. The worst thing that can happen is you pay $50 for the writing rescore and the score stays the same. If the score ends up going up, you get the $50 refunded. There is another thread here: that talks about rescores:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19334164#Comment_19334164

Alot of people have had favorable rescores.

@brant9297 You looked nice for your interview. Don’t’ worry too much. At this point I don’t see an advantage in taking the ACT again unless the school you choose awards a higher financial package because of scores.

anyone else still registered?

Yes, my daughter still is…

Unfortunately, yes. Really frustrating as that was my first time taking it, and now I’m taking it a second time on Tuesday for LA state testing without knowing my first score.

Yes I am still registered. Hoping for Wednesday.

Is any one who is still waiting showing up as tested yet? Still registered here.

it appers that -1 was 34 for reading and -1 was for 35 for english. Science scale must have been brutal, i have never gotten such low score on science pratice test before. any one had success with hand rescoring option with multiple choice portion of the test?