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July 31, 2017 by Mike Bergin

How to Delete an ACT Score

Some days, you just don’t have it. Maybe you’re tired or unfocused or unprepared. Perhaps you forgot your admission ticket or had to deal with a poor proctor. Whatever the reason, if your test day spirals out of control and your ACT scores fall far below your potential, all is not lost.

ACT test takers have many options for handling unflattering scores. The main approach to bad scores is to simply ignore them. Your ACT scores are automatically sent to any high school you report as well as college score recipients you select before testing. But you should never (with limited exceptions) have your unseen scores automatically sent to target schools. Better to wait until after the fact and pay a little extra to choose which ACT scores to send to whom. You can choose test administrations but not specific sections to send.

Considering the availability of selective score reporting and widespread superscoring among colleges, most students have all the control they need to ensure that admissions officers only see scores that support a strong application. However, certain highly competitive colleges demand that applicants submit every single test score. The penalties for violating such a rule remain unclear, but applicants do sign off on the veracity of their records, which suggests that a school that discovers an applicant held scores back could rescind admission.

Why take chances with something as important as admission to your dream school? If one of your ACT scores is so uncharacteristically low that you dread having it appear even accidentally, you can delete it. As far as ACT is concerned, you own your test scores. Thus, you may direct ACT to delete your scores for a particular test date:

To delete your scores for a particular test date, you must submit a written request. Provide us with your name and home address, and we will mail you a form to complete and return to us. We will then permanently remove your record for that test date from our files. All scores from that test date will be deleted.

Write to:
ACT Institutional Services
P.O. Box 168
Iowa City, IA 52243-0168
USA

The antiquated requirement for a request in writing may dissuade some students. Also, students may not delete scores used to document participation in State and District Testing. But if you’re applying to one of those persnickety schools that require every single score and are willing to jump through a couple of hoops, you can expunge an abhorrent score from your records.

Then, make sure you put in the kind of quality prep to ensure that you do better next time!

ACT score reports scoring

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Mike Bergin
Tens of thousands of students a year prep for the SAT & ACT through programs Mike Bergin created or organized. After more than 25 years of intensive experience in the education industry, he's done it all as a teacher, tutor, director, curriculum developer, blogger, podcaster, and best-selling author. Mike founded Chariot Learning in 2009 to deliver on the promise of what truly transformative individualized education can and should be.

4 comments

Tuvana Pastine says:
September 6, 2018 at 6:01 am

Thank you for the information. You suggested that “students may not delete scores used to document participation in State and District Testing. ” I am afraid that this is what happened to my daughter without us realizing. Is there absolutely no solution to this problem?
Best,
Tuvana

Mike Bergin says:
September 11, 2018 at 7:32 pm

Not that I am aware of. Luckily, more and more colleges superscore SAT and ACT results anyway, which means your daughter’s scores on this test won’t matter if they are lower than her other test scores.

Francesca freudenberger says:
July 24, 2020 at 11:33 am

Hello, We had scores sent to colleges already and cannot retest to replace it because of COVID. Now the college will accept a no-test application but I fear that the score deleting through ACT will not affect the score they already have. I mean if I haven’t applied yet will they still have that low score somewhere in their database or do they just pull it up when they receive the application?

Mike Bergin says:
July 27, 2020 at 10:19 am

You are correct that deleting the score through ACT will not change the records at colleges who have already received the scores. Your best strategy is to either retest (still a great idea) or contact the admissions office of the school directly to request that they delete the scores.

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