The ACT is Changing in 2025!

By Katherine O'Brien, Certified College Planning Specialist, Founder of Celtic College Consultants

The SAT changed significantly a couple of years ago after the ACT gained more than 50% of the market. Now that the SAT is being taken by more than half of test taking students, the ACT is changing.

The ACT is phasing in its changes.

October 2024

Students could pilot the new ACT on a limited basis.

April, June, and July 2025 National test dates - TWO OPTIONS

Students can take the new ACT online OR the current version on paper. The cost is the same. Both online and paper exams must be taken at official testing centers. As before, students will select the testing center when registering for the exam.

September 2025 and beyond

ALL ACT takers will take the revised ACT.

The new ACT will be a digital test.

What's new?

1. The ACT will be a SHORTER test. The Science section will be OPTIONAL.

The ACT will drop from being more than three hours long to being just over two hours long. (125 minutes v. 195 minutes) Overall the revised ACT will include 44 fewer questions than the current version. Students choosing to take the science section will have an additional 40 minutes. The optional writing section also takes 40 minutes.

 

This chart shows the number of questions for each portion of the test, along with the length of each section of the test. While students only taking the English, math, and reading sections will finish in just over 2 hours, students taking the science and the writing sections will have 205 minutes of testing. (The current ACT with writing takes 235 minutes, nearly 4 hours.)

 

 

 

2. There will be MORE TIME PER QUESTION on the revised ACT

 

The average will be almost 58 seconds per question, rather than the current version which only allowed a mere 49 seconds per question. The English section will allow 42 seconds per question, up from 36. The math section will give more than 10% longer per question, 67 seconds, rather than 60. Additionally, rather than five possible answers, math questions on the revised ACT will only offer four possible answers. The reading section will also allow 67 seconds per question, significantly more than the previous 53 seconds. Finally, for those who take the science section, 60 seconds, rather than 53 seconds will be allowed per question.

3. NEW ACT SCORING

The ACT score composite was calculated from the four sections: math, science, English, and reading. Making the science section optional prompted a change in the way the composite score is determined. Now the composite score will be made up from the English, math, and reading portions of the test. Section scores will be given for the science (The reading comprehension section will include some science reading. ) and writing. A STEM score will also be provided for students who take the science section. The STEM score will be derived from the math and science portion scores.

The top score on the ACT will remain a 36. Per the ACT, the new composite scores will be equivalent to the current scores. Beginning in September, 2025, ALL ACT composite scores will be calculated according to the new method.

4. The OPTIONAL Science section

Except for the fact that there will be more time available per question, the science section will not be changing. The same types of questions will be asked.

The College Prep Landscape is Changing, Again!

by Katherine O'Brien, MA CCPS, Founder Celtic College Consultants

Years in the making, today's announcement by the College Board that they are discontinuing the SAT Subject Tests effective immediately, dropping the SAT optional essay after June, and preparing a digital testing modality for the SAT are more signs that the college prep and college admissions worlds are in a phase of metamorphosis. Coming just a couple years before the HS graduation classes start to shrink, today's changes continue to reveal the need for an overhaul of the system.

The College Board will lean on its AP courses and exams more heavily for revenues, alongside the SAT exam. SAT revenues have been shrinking with fewer than half as many test takers in 2020 than previous years, largely due to test site closures due to public health measures effected in response to the pandemic. 

Top students will need to explore and develop additional ways to differentiate themselves from their peers and the long held advantage of the wealthy is not likely to diminish. Summer camps, courses, and programs will likely grow, since they provide many diverse avenues for students to develop and demonstrate various competencies and academic interests, as well as to make connections with well placed recommenders.

Admissions offices will need to continue to revise their evaluative methodologies and processes as more and more applicants turn to these varied methods to demonstrate their worthiness of a place in the next freshman class. The days of calculating an academic score based on GPA, types of courses taken, and a test score or two are clearly numbered. With many colleges and universities adopting test optional or test blind policies this year, an increase in the number making that change permanently has already started to be seen. FairTest.org's data tells that tale quite clearly.

Students, already experienced in adapting to change because of the pandemic, will again have new options to consider while the old begin to fade. For many, these opportunities will enable them to articulate their gifts far more effectively than the very game-able SAT test ever could facilitate. Their creativity, ability to problem solve, lead others, conduct research, give presentations, etc. will be much more easily showcased - and have those demonstrations be given the increased attention they always deserved. While this process is not as cut and dry as a mathematical formula, it is more honest. After all, people are much more complex than a test score could ever show them to be.

Since many colleges have used test scores to validate homeschooled students' courses, the continued shift away from the SAT and ACT raises some questions about how admissions policies for these students will change. The five year old Classic Learning Test (CLT) exam can take up some of the slack but, with the tide going out on all test scores, one wonders how well the CLT will survive, despite its amazing growth in 2020. This part of the shift in admissions policies and practices is yet to be determined and announced.
 

Major Shifts in the World of College Admissions Testing

With recently announced changes to the ACT, instability in SAT scores from one sitting to the next, and the strong showing of the new CLT, students need to re-think their approach to college admissions tests.

 

The ACT

Beginning with the September, 2020 national ACT test date, students who have taken the ACT will have the option to retake individual sections of the test, rather than the entire exam.This new option will enable students to fine tune their scores, especially combined with the new policy to begin superscoring the ACT, thus providing students with the highest possible ACT composite score.

In September of 2020, students will also begin to have the option to take the ACT online, with faster test results, but only on national test dates.    At first this will only be available at selected test centers.  Eventually all testing centers will offer students the option to take the test on paper or online.  Online testers will also see their scores in two days, rather than the typical two weeks.

For further information, see the ACT's announcement here.

The Newcomer, the CLT or Classic Learning Test

The CLT (Classic Learning Test) is in its 5^th year.  It has a verbal section and a math section (no calculator).  The test is roughly 2/3 verbal and 1/3 math.  Since the top score of 120 is 5 points higher than the CLT score that correlates with a 36 or 1600, top students can (and are!) differentiate themselves from the others also scoring perfect scores on the ACT or SAT.

The CLT has doubled the number of test sites for the December 7, 2019 test date.  Many of the sites are colleges – and many of those are offering lunch and a campus tour after the test! During the test, students have 40 minutes for the Verbal Reasoning section, 35 minutes for Grammar/Writing, and 45 minutes for Quantitative Reasoning, for a total test-taking time of 120 minutes, not including the optional 30-minute essay. There is a 10-minute restroom break between the Grammar/Writing and Quantitative Reasoning sections. Students take the exam on their own laptop or tablet, and receive their scores the same day, which they can then share with colleges of their choice at no charge. Register here. (The deadline is 12/3). The CLT also offers an optional 30 minute essay (admissions will be able to read the essay, thus offering them a glimpse at a writing sample which is unedited and untouched by anyone other than the student).  There are over 400 testing sites all across the US.

The classic in Classic Learning Test refers to its use of the greatest and most enduring texts that have informed and shaped society. Although these texts are featured prominently in a classical education, the CLT instead emphasizes intellectual aptitude and achievement, by no means limiting itself simply to a classical curriculum. All students are welcome to take the CLT, whether for self-evaluation or to send results to colleges. The list of authors whose work is cited on the CLT is available on the CLT website (cltexam.com) and includes Christian, pagan, Muslim, and other authors.

At the moment, the CLT is accepted in lieu of the ACT or SAT at over 170 colleges and universities.  Top students are submitting their CLT score along with their ACT or SAT score to set themselves apart from other top scoring applicants.

Prep

The CLT offers free practice tests for the CLT and the CLT10 exams.  Test examples can be downloaded from https://www.cltexam.com/practice-home.  A practice CLT8 test is also available on that page.

The SAT

The SAT hasn’t been as consistent from sitting to sitting as the ACT has been over the years.  The recent dip in scores after the August 2019 sitting has left students unsure of whether their scores will accurately reflect their abilities.  For full information, see the article here.
The SAT and ACT are standardized; students are held to the same standards and compared to each other, which is what college admissions officers want to see. However, that also means that raw scores are converted to that 1600-pt scale using a curve that depends on the difficulty level and performance of students on that particular test administration. 

Here's how Jed Applerouth explains it: "On the scales that the College Board provides for their official practice tests, a student who missed one question in the Math section would normally expect to score 790, a student who missed two would score 770-780, and so forth; on most practice tests the College Board provides, a student could miss as many as eight questions and still score in the low 700’s. The August test was different. From what we could find out from our own students, a student who missed one question dropped to 770 and a student who missed two dropped to 750. Missing eight questions dropped a student to 660, rather than the low 700’s." 

That sort of anomoly has understandably made many students concerned about what will happen in future administrations.  After all, thousands and thousands of scholarship dollars, as well as admissions decisions, are tied to these scores.

With all of these changes happening, it's time to re-think testing strategies.  I'd be happy to help discuss this as well as all your college prep questions.  Schedule your one hour private (via Skype or FaceTime) consultation (normally $250, recently reduced to $100) here.