Should son State he took ACT on app if he’s not sending score?

My S20 took the ACT once and the SAT twice but he is only sending his SAT scores to colleges. If an app asks whether he took the ACT should he say no since he’s not reporting it, or yes because he did actually take it. If he marks yes, then it asks for the self reporting of the score which defeats the purpose of not sending it in. This is a college specific app, not the common app.

What does the college admission’s website say about reporting testing? If it says to report all scores of all tests, then you will need to report the ACT.

Is that the exact wording? If it asks if you to ACT, he should be honest and say yes. If it simply asks if he wants to report scores, then he can say no.

@BKSquared the website states SAT or ACT and nowhere does it say that you must submit all scores.

@skieurope the exact wording on the question does ask “Did you take the ACT?”. This is a special priority app they sent us a link to. His ACT score is pretty much equivalent to his SAT so I guess we’ll just self report it but not pay to send in the official score (we sent both his SAT scores since they do superscore).

That seems perfectly reasonable. I don’t think the people who design the forms always realize how we will overthink what to do about it. If the scores are very similar, I don’t think it will make any difference.

Send in your higher scores and call it a day.

But don’t lose an opportunity to reach out to the AO for your son’s school. Since the wordage could be slightly confusing. Have your son plainly as the question to his AO at the school not just “Admissions”. Especially if it’s a school that wants interest to be expressed. It’s a nice light touch.

Lying on firms is unethical. To say “no” when the answer is “yes” is outright lying. No ifs and buts about it.

My personal response which I’ve used at times when I prefer greatly not to give information is to ignore the question if possible and just leave blank. Problem is that these computer forms sometimes do not permit that. If it comes down to having to answer , yes, I would. I would not lie.

something similar to this drove us nuts with the common app. S is reporting only ONE score when he did not take the writing. Then the CA asks if he’s ever taken the ACT with writing, and if so what was that score. He had; but he’s not reporting that score date, so we said NO, although that wasn’t the truth. We contacted CA customer service and they specifically said he doesn’t need to report that date, even though it felt like we were being less than truthful because he had taken the writing section. Why on earth would they have a question like that!? makes no sense.

I know this sounds confusing; anyone else been through that as well??

I’ll suggest to my son that he try to leave that question unanswered, but if the form forces him to pick yes or no, then he’ll mark yes because he and I both feel it would be dishonest to do otherwise. I will also suggest to him that he reach out to the AO at the school. Thanks for the suggestions!