Question re: Reporting Essay section of ACT and/or SAT on CA

D19 (SAT 1590) and S19 (ACT 35) have one-sitting great scores on respective tests but less stellar essay scores.

Since most/all of the schools they’ll be applying to do not request the essay score, they are torn about how / whether to report it on CA. The CA specifically asks ‘did you take the essay portion’ and if so ‘what was your score/ELA’.

One option is to say you didn’t take the essay on the CA but that would be proven untrue when the actual scores are forwarded. The other option is of course to just put down the scores. However, it is giving my S enough anxiety that he would consider taking the whole test again to get the essay score up. We have STRONGLY advised against this approach.

Anyone else deal with this issue and/or have a suggestion. They certainly do not want to say they didn’t take the test when they did but they also know most schools don’t care.

Thanks.

I would really like to see if anyone has a response/advice for OP. My son is in a similar situation with a comparatively low score in the essay portion, bringing down his overall ELA score by about 4 points. Thinking it is better to not self report his ACT score on CA so they will look at the whole official score report.