Have to report that dd took the ACT w/writing on the Comm App if she does not want to use that score

Hi,

Our daughter took the ACT with writing and scored a 5 on the writing section. She is filling out the Common App and does not want to self report that particular ACT test at all. She has two other test dates she wants to self-report (two because reporting both will bring her superscore up to a 33). She did not take the writing test with either of those two. But the Common App asks very directly if a student took the writing test. The answer is yes, but we don’t want to self-report it. Her writing score isn’t linked to either of the test scores she wants to report, and she is not applying to any colleges that require the writing portion of the test.

We reached out to the Common App text support, and they suggested that we do whatever we feel like doing. We feel like not reporting it, but do not feel like lying! It’s very confusing, because it’s supposed to be about you choosing which scores you would like to report, but there is no place to opt out of reporting the writing section if you took it, even if only once. We can’t decide if we should just take the Common App text support at their word, and answer “no” to the question about if she took it, or if we should just not self-report scores. We’ve seen where others want to leave off just the writing section on tests that they want to report, but cannot find any information about what to do if you don’t want to report that particular test at all. We don’t want to be misleading, but don’t want to have to report the score. But we would way prefer self-reporting her other two scores over not self-reporting at all. Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

As long as the schools you are applying to don’t require writing you do not have to report it…so choose ‘no’.

On the flip side, if you do report it and the school doesn’t require writing they most likely won’t even consider the 5.

And yes, I agree the common app’s wording isn’t great.