On July 15th, Janet Godwin, the CEO of ACT, announced that the test will be changing in several significant ways. In this short blog, you will learn what we know about the changes, what we don’t know, and, most importantly, what it means for you and your student.
What’s Changing?
The ACT will be shorter
The current ACT is approximately 3 hours long and includes 215 questions. Without the ’optional’ Science section, the new ACT will be just 2 hours and 5 minutes long and will have just 131 questions. With Science, the test is 2 hours and 45 minutes and is comprised of 171 questions. The ACT has indicated that passages themselves will be shorter and may include new passage-types.
The table below shows the proposed structure of the new ACT as well as the change in the number of questions and amount of time in each section.
The pacing will be more reasonable
The ACT is notorious for being a fast-paced test. The new ACT purports to place less emphasis on time, providing students with more time to carefully consider each question.
Science will be optional
The Science section, which is the last section of the test, will now be ‘optional’. Students will be able to choose to take the test with or without Science, and their Composite score will be an average of either the three core sections (English, Math, and Reading) or all four sections, including Science.
Students will choose between digital or paper testing
The ACT has expressed a commitment to continuing to offer a paper-based test for students who prefer that format. The ACT has that they will continue to offer the Test Information Release (TIR), which allows students to review the specific questions they missed on an official test – a valuable tool for effective preparation that is NOT available for the new SAT.
When is the ACT Changing?
The new ACT is expected to be available to online testers in April 2025 and to paper-based testers in September 2025, though these dates may shift.
Another way of thinking about it: the ACT will remain the same through the February 2025 test date, and students who opt for the paper test will continue to take the current version of the ACT through the July 2025 test date.
Note: students who take the ACT in school as a graduation requirement will likely continue to use the current format of the test until early 2026.
What does this mean for my student?
Class of 2025: Stay the course
The upcoming changes to the ACT will not affect students who will graduate in 2025. Students who are preparing for the SAT or ACT right now should ignore the fact that the ACT will be changing and simply focus on doing their best on the current version of the test.
Class of 2026: Make an informed choice
Students in the class of 2026 should still take a diagnostic SAT and a diagnostic ACT, compare the results, and choose the test that is the best fit for them. If you would like to have your student take a diagnostic SAT and/or ACT, simply complete this short contact form and we will follow up to provide testing options. For now, students should take the current ACT as a diagnostic. Beginning in Spring 2025, students will begin taking the new ACT as a diagnostic test.
The ACT has stated that questions from the current test will provide good preparation for the new version of the ACT, and we expect the structure and personality of the questions on the new test to remain consistent with the current test. Thus, students who prepare for the current ACT will develop skills that also help them be successful on the new ACT.
Until we have more information about the new test, we do NOT recommend that students take the computer-based ACT. We also recommend that any student planning to take the ACT should plan to take the test WITH Science. These recommendations may evolve, but right now it is better to be thorough than to take risks with uncertain consequences.
If your student is hesitant about preparing for a test that may change during the preparation, they may prefer to take the SAT. While the SAT has been redesigned in the past year, it seems to be stabilizing, and we have a much better understanding of the new test than we did just a few months ago.
Class of 2027: Wait and see
If your student is in the class of 2027, their most important job right now is to focus on their academics and extracurriculars, which will help them to develop the skills, knowledge, and composure that will help them to successfully navigate college admissions testing. Students in the class of 2027 have at least a year before they need to begin actively preparing for either the SAT or ACT, and we will learn a lot about both of these tests in the next few months. For now, the best strategy is to be both informed and patient – there’s lots of time before your student will need to make any decisions about testing.
Are the changes to the ACT a good thing?
The ACT has been in constant competition with the SAT for more than 50 years, and the recent redesign of the SAT has given the CollegeBoard a competitive advantage, allowing it to offer a significantly shorter test that contains no long reading passages. For many students, this makes the SAT an easy choice. However, the SAT also has a well-earned reputation for dense, complicated text and questions that are heavy on intimidation, even if the underlying content is not particularly advanced. For many students, the ACT’s main selling point has been that it is more direct and straightforward, which makes it feel friendlier and more accessible. One important, unanswered question is whether the core personality of the ACT will remain the same. It seems very likely that it will, but it’s not a given.
Many smart, thoughtful folks in the tutoring and test prep community have already weighed in. Some, such as Art Sawyer at Compass Education Group expressed concern, while others, such as David Blobaum of Summit Prep and Mike Bergin of Chariot Learning are more optimistic. The reality is that it will probably be a long time before we truly understand the implications of these changes.
The ACT’s decision to make the Science section optional is concerning, because the skills it tests are valuable, and making this section optional signals that Science is not important, when in fact this section is testing essential data-literacy skills that are important not only in the classroom but also for life as an informed citizen. The future of the Science section will largely depend on how colleges choose to view it. If colleges require the Science section, then it will be optional in name only. However, colleges may be incentivized to embrace Science-optional testing, as it helps to inflate their average SAT/ACT scores. Incentives are important here, and they aren’t in Science’s favor.
It’s also important to consider WHO the changes are ‘good’ for. If these changes to the ACT increase the number of testers and take market share from the College Board, then the changes will certainly be ‘good’ for the ACT and, specifically, the venture capital firm that just purchased the ACT. If these changes lead to a test with better predictive validity than the old SAT, these changes will be good for colleges. If these changes produce a test that is straightforward, consistent, unbiased, reliable, affordable, accessible, and better able to assess skills that indicate college readiness, THEN it will be a good thing for students. Here’s hoping it’s a step in the right direction.
