Beginning freshman year, students at Bellevue West start prepping for the ACT they take their junior year. As the test approaches, students study more for the ACT with resources from John Baylor, and the importance of this test is repeated to students over and over.
However, there has been a steady decline in colleges and universities that require test scores. Currently 80% of colleges plan to not require ACT or SAT scores for the fall of 2025.
Despite this the state of Nebraska requires juniors in high school to take this test. The question arises as to whether the amount of work and stress students are putting into this standardized test is really worth it.
I only took the ACT only once. Could I have taken it again and worked to up my score? Definitely. But I opted not to stress on this standardized test that gave me little to no life skills.
This is the problem with the ACT and tests like it. Students waste time prepping for a specific test, learning strategies for a test that have been proven to not predict how well an individual will do in college. A study from the University of Chicago Consortium showed that high school grade point average was five times better of a predictor of college graduation than the ACT.
It is recommended for students to spend anywhere from 10-20 hours preparing for the ACT plus the 3-4 hours the test itself takes. This time could be doubled or tripled depending how many times a student plans to take the test, as on the ACT website they write, “On average it takes students 2-3 times to achieve their testing goals.” This time instead could be used working on school work, making money, or spending time on themselves.
Standardized tests can also make students feel bad about themselves, as they hear about others’ scores, when tests should not be a reflection on how good someone is as a person.
Unfortunately in the world we live in today, the ACT can be helpful for some people. Despite its useless and stressful nature, many scholarships use this to determine whether students deserve money. I have part of my college tuition paid for because of my ACT score alone.
I mention this because I do not blame students for wanting to do well on this test, nor do I want to discourage future students from doing their best if they feel it is worth it. In an ideal world the ACT and standardized tests like it would be non-existent, but this is not the case.
Students need to consider if the drawbacks of preparing and taking the ACT are worth it for them. There are many other ways to get scholarships like participating in extracurriculars, getting good grades, and writing essays. In order to allow students to make this decision for themselves, outside pressures like those from the school need to stop. For this to happen the requirement from the state for high schoolers to take the ACT needs to be removed.
