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What to Expect on the ACT Essay

Understanding the act essay prompt, how the act essay is scored, ideas and analysis.

This domain evaluates your ability to analyze multiple perspectives (yours and one of the given perspectives). To score highly in the Ideas and Analysis domain, your argumentative essay should contain a clear thesis statement and address the complexity, underlying assumptions and implications of the perspectives you have chosen to write about.

Development and Support

This domain evaluates your ability to support your point of view. To score highly in Development and Support, your must support your ideas with examples and logical reasoning. Be sure to convey the significance of your argument as well as address an alternative perspective in a way that ultimately bolsters your position.

Organization

This domain evaluates your ability to craft a well-designed essay. To score highly in the Organization domain, your essay should include introduction and conclusion paragraphs, a thesis statement, topic sentences as well as transitions both between paragraphs as well as sentences as appropriate.

Language Use and Conventions

This domain evaluates your ability to communicate your ideas using the conventions of written English. To score highly in the Language Use and Conventions domain, your word choice should be accurate and precise, you should use synonyms and pronouns as appropriate to vary your word choice, use proper sentence structure and write with a tone that matches the nature of your argument. Minor spelling or grammar errors that do not hinder the reader’s ability to understand your argument do not count against you.

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ACT scoring doesn't have to be a mystery.  Learn how the answers you get right on the ACT translate to your overall score. We'll explain the ACT grading scale and show you a sample ACT score chart. 

Is the ACT scored on a curve?

Best 382 Colleges 2018 Edition on TODAY Show

ACT Tips: Pacing and Personal Order of Difficulty

On each  section of the ACT , the number of correct answers converts to a scaled score of 1–36. ACT works hard to adjust the grading scale of each test at each administration as necessary to make all scaled scores comparable, smoothing out any differences in level of difficulty across test dates.

There is no truth to any one ACT test date being “easier” than the others, but you can expect to see slight variations in the scale from test to test.

Calculate Your ACT Score

Act raw score vs scale score.

Here’s how ACT scoring works. You’re given a point for every question you get right (there’s no penalty or point deduction for wrong answers). The total number of questions you get right on each test (English, Math, Reading, and Science) equals your raw score . Your raw score for each test is then converted into a scale score (1–36).  

Composite Score

Your composite score, or overall ACT score, is the average of your scores on each test. Add up your English, Math, Reading, and Science scores and divide by 4. (Round to the nearest whole number). Learn more about what your ACT scores mean .

Sample ACT Scoring Chart

This is a sample ACT raw score conversion grid from the free test ACT makes available on its website. Keep in mind, the ACT score chart for each test administration is different, so this one should be used only as an example.

Read More: What's a Good ACT Score?

How is the ACT Writing Test scored?

The writing test score is a little more complicated. If you take the ACT Plus Writing (which will ask you to write an essay), your writing will be evaluated by two readers. Both readers score your essay on a scale of 1–6 in four different areas (learn more about the ACT essay here ). The ACT essay score will appear on your score report on a scale from 2-12. ACT also reports an English Language Arts (ELA) score out of 36, which represents your overall performance on the English, reading, and writing tests, but this value is NOT included in your ACT Composite Score calculation. No ELA score is reported if you do not choose to take the ACT With Essay.

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Everything You Need to Know About ACT Writing

The ACT Writing test, or essay section, tests your ability to read different perspectives on a topic and present your own opinion in writing. It’s the optional last section of the exam, meaning that you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to–although there are many colleges and universities that require or recommend it for admissions. Here’s what you need to know about ACT Writing in a nutshell!

What is the ACT Writing section?

Here are the need-to-know facts about the ACT Writing section :

• It’s a 40-minute test to complete with pencil and paper
• You’ll get one essay prompt about a debatable topic and three different perspectives on it
• evaluate the three different perspectives
• present your own perspective (which may agree in part or in full with any of the provided viewpoints)
• explain the relationship between your viewpoint and the provided ones.

Do I have to take ACT Writing?

Nope! It’s not a required part of the exam. You can think of it as an add-on that, yes, also costs a little bit more. But whether the test requires the essay and whether colleges do are two separate issues. While you can submit the ACT without writing to many colleges and universities, others (including most super-competitive colleges) will ask you for it. Because the list of which colleges require ACT writing is constantly changing, it’s best to check with the individual schools you’re thinking of applying to before you register.

With that said, some students do take the exam before they know where they’ll be applying to college. So in this case, is it better to do the ACT test with or without writing? If you’re really uncertain, take it with writing. This will ensure that you don’t have to go back to the test center because you’ve decided to apply to a college that does require it in a few months! Yes, it requires some extra prep–but it’s worth it to keep your options open.

How does ACT Writing scoring work?

If you’ve been prepping for the ACT overall, you’re probably very (overly?) familiar with the 1-36 scoring scale by now. But this isn’t how the ACT essay is scored! Because it’s not a multiple-choice section, the essay has its own unique scoring. Take a look!

How ACT Writing Is Scored

The writing portion of the ACT is scored by two graders, each of whom will assign you a writing score of 1 to 6 on four different writing “domains.” These domains include:

• Ideas and Analysis: does your thesis statement and writing examine the implications of the issue with clarity and nuance?
• Development and Support: do you use well-developed and specific examples to support your thesis?
• Organization: does your essay have a strong structure and a logical flow?
• Language Use and Conventions: do you use correct grammar, word usage, mechanics, punctuation, and sentence structures?

Your total points added up between these two graders are converted from these domain scores to a scaled score of 2 to 12, which is the final score you will see on your score report.

Getting Your ACT Writing Scores

So you’ve done it! You sat down, you wrote your essay…now what? When will ACT Writing scores be available? Well, you’ll get your multiple-choice scores in around two weeks, and you’ll get your ACT Writing scores (and full score report) about two weeks after that. So anticipate waiting around a month to get the total view of how you did on the ACT essay.

Can ACT Writing hurt your score?

No! Not, that is, if you’re talking about the composite ACT score on the 1-36 scale. This is an average of your 1-36 scores in each of the four multiple-choice sections (Reading, Math, English, and Science). It doesn’t take your essay score into account. In other words–does the ACT writing score affect composite scores? It doesn’t.

With that said, the essay score will affect your ELA subscore on the exam. (You can see what this looks like on a score report here .) But colleges and universities are far more interested in your sectional and composite scores.

What essay score is good?

Generally, an 8+ is an excellent ACT Writing score , but it depends on where you’re applying. Ivy-League-bound students should aim for 9 or above !

Can ACT Writing be superscored?

Nope! The ACT superscore is a way of combining your highest multiple-choice scores from different sections and different test dates to give you the highest possible combination. But it only affects your composite score . Because the essay isn’t part of your composite score, it’s not part of the superscore, either.

What happens if I mess up on the writing section?

If you’re wondering if you can cancel the section after they’ve taken it, unfortunately, the answer is no. Once you’ve written the essay, your score will appear on your score report. But if you change your mind about taking the writing section of the ACT, you can cancel it before you get into the testing room.

If you feel that you didn’t do your best, or you get a lower score than you’d like, can you retake ACT Writing? Definitely! But for the moment, ACT sectional retesting is on hold—and it may or may not include the ACT writing test being taken separately. To retake ACT Writing, in other words, you’ll need to retake the entire exam…for now.

How to Improve Your Writing Score

So how do you boost your ACT essay score? Take a look at these tips!

✅ Practice planning and writing essays on practice ACT essay prompts. Although writing full essays (preferably as part of ACT practice tests ) is the best practice, ten-minute outlining sessions in which you plan out your essay (like you will do on the test) can go a long way in helping you learn how to quickly generate and organize your ideas.

✅ If grammar is not your strong suit, check out our post on ACT grammar rules . Not only will this help you improve your grammar for the ACT essay, but it also will help you with the ACT English section !

✅ Share your writing with the strong writers you know and get feedback from them. Have them score your practice essays using the ACT rubric .

✅ Review the sample essays on actstudent.org so that you can get a sense of what kinds of essays get which scores. This can be incredibly helpful!

✅ Learn about current events and form your own opinions on them. Engage in lively debates with your friends and family so that you can practice supporting your opinions and anticipating opposing arguments!

Want even more? Read Your Magical Guide to Scoring a Perfect 12 on the ACT Essay , which will guide you through all the basics (if you’re a beginner) and how to improve your score (if you’ve already taken the test). There, you will find lots more writing tips and strategies that will help you show the ACT Writing test who’s boss. Happy Studying!

Rachel is a Magoosh Content Creator. She writes and updates content on our High School and GRE Blogs to ensure students are equipped with the best information during their test prep journey. As a test-prep instructor for more than five years in there different countries, Rachel has helped students around the world prepare for various standardized tests, including the SAT, ACT, TOEFL, GRE, and GMAT, and she is one of the authors of our Magoosh ACT Prep Book . Rachel has a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Brown University, an MA in Cinematography from the Université de Paris VII, and a Ph.D. in Film Studies from University College London. For over a decade, Rachel has honed her craft as a fiction and memoir writer and public speaker. Her novel, THE BALLERINAS , is forthcoming in December 2021 from St. Martin’s Press , while her memoir, GRADUATES IN WONDERLAND , co-written with Jessica Pan, was published in 2014 by Penguin Random House. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online and print publications, including Vanity Fair Hollywood. When she isn’t strategically stringing words together at Magoosh, you can find Rachel riding horses or with her nose in a book. Join her on Twitter , Instagram , or Facebook !

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Your ACT Scoring Guide for 2024

Act scoring: your complete guide for 2024.

Bonus Material: ACT Score Ranges for 499 Colleges

How does ACT scoring work?

Can you superscore the ACT? What does it take to get a “good” ACT score?

If you’re starting your ACT test prep, you’ve probably asked at least one of these questions.

The ACT is a vastly different test than the SAT, the other college entrance exam. It has different sections and time constraints. It especially has a different scoring system, which can feel foreign to first-time test-takers.

We’re here to break down everything you need to know about ACT scoring in 2022 so you can jump into this test feeling confident and prepared.

We also give readers access to the ACT Score Ranges for the top 499 U.S. colleges and universities, a great resource for those establishing their target ACT scores. Grab this below.

Download ACT Score Ranges for 499 Colleges

Here’s what we cover in this post:

• How the ACT is Scored

Which Scores Matter Most to Colleges in 2022

• Superscoring the ACT
• What Counts as a Good ACT Score for 2022
• ACT and SAT Score Comparison
• Bonus: ACT Score Ranges for 499 Colleges

ACT Scoring 101

The ACT has 5 sections, in this order:

• Essay ( optional )

Every section except the ACT essay is scored on a scale of 1-36. 1 is the lowest score you can achieve on an individual section, while 36 is the highest score possible.

Students also receive an ACT total score, called the composite score . This is the average of the scores received on the four required ACT sections.

Take a look at this sample student ACT score report to see this scoring system in action.

Here, the student’s composite score of 21 is the average of the student’s individual ACT section scores (19, 18, 24, and 23). If this average equates to a decimal, such as 20.8, ACT will round to the nearest whole number , which would be 21 in this case.

What about the ACT Essay score?

The student’s ACT essay (also referred to as Writing) scores do not impact their ACT composite score and fall on a range of 2-12. This number is the sum of two essay readers’ scores, which are assigned in 4 domains:

• Ideas & Analysis
• Development & Support
• Organization
• Language Use & Conventions

You can find the detailed rubric that ACT essay readers use here .

If you do not take the ACT essay, you will not see a score reported in the “Writing” column. Nor will you see an English Language Arts (ELA) score.

What are ranks?

As you can see in the sample ACT score report above, reports also include information about a student’s “ranking” in the U.S. and that student’s home state. These are approximate percentages of recent grads who have taken the ACT in the U.S. and your state and achieved the same score as you or lower.

The ACT offers these rankings for your composite score, individual section scores, and STEM/ELA scores.

These rankings can be helpful from an assessment perspective. But when it comes to the numbers colleges care about, they aren’t as essential.

What are college readiness benchmarks?

Your score report will also show how your scores relate to what ACT calls “College Readiness Benchmarks,” indicated by a purple line within each scoring column. These are scoring benchmarks designed to predict success in college-level courses.

In this sample score report, the student is below these benchmarks for Math and Science. She is above the benchmarks for English and Reading.

Here are the benchmark ACT scores for college readiness as of 2022:

• English: 18
• Math:  22
• Reading: 22
• Science: 23

How does ACT calculate my score per section?

Every ACT section has different content and different numbers of questions. So how does ACT boil each down to a number on a scale of 1-36?

Basically, they’ll tally up the number of questions you got correct on a section, called your raw score . They then convert these raw scores for each section to a number between 1-36 using a specific scaled conversion table, like the one below.

If you got 31 questions correct on the ACT Science section of this test, for example, this would yield a 26 sectional score. 50 correct questions on ACT Math on this test equates to a 30.

Is a 36 on one ACT exactly the same as a 36 on another ACT?

Not necessarily.

No two ACTs are alike. They will vary in difficulty, so ACT uses a process called “equating” to balance these discrepancies. The company doesn’t say much about what goes into the equating process, but we can see it at work if we look at sections from the raw score conversion charts for 2 official ACT practice tests.

To get a 30 on ACT English on Practice Test #1, a student must get 65 questions correct. But to get a 30 on ACT English on Practice Test #2, a student has to ace 66 questions.

This might seem like a subtle difference, but take a look at Math. 49 Math questions correct on Practice Test #1 yields a 30, while 51 equates to a 30 on Practice Test #2.

These differences can add up!

Can you predict when ACT will administer an “easy” test?

Nope. While taking the test, you might be able to sense if a section feels harder or easier than other official practice tests.

But there’s no viable way to predict an “easy” ACT. What’s more, an “easy” ACT does not necessarily equate to an easy perfect score! Easier sections often require students to get more questions correct to earn a higher score.

What scores will colleges prioritize when they look at your score report? Your composite? Each section score? Your Essay score? Your ACT rankings?

In a nutshell, colleges are going to care most about your ACT composite score . But they will also likely place a heavy emphasis on your ACT section scores.

That’s why we encourage students to work on maximizing their scores in all 4 sections of the ACT. Doing so will also positively impact their composite score, as the composite is the average of all 4 section scores.

Schools have different policies regarding how they assess ACT Essay scores. Because fewer and fewer schools are requiring the ACT Essay, it’s safe to say that most schools will only assess these Essay scores for advising purposes (if at all).

You can learn more about how specific colleges on your list review ACT score reports by checking out what they have to say about standardized tests on their websites.

Bates College , for example, while test-optional, actually specifies the Middle 50% of successful applicants’ test scores on its website. It also states that it superscores the ACT and SAT, which we discuss in the next section.

We’ve compiled the ACT score ranges of successful applicants to the top 499 U.S. colleges and universities in one easy-to-read document! Download a copy below.

Can You Superscore the ACT?

Yes! The ACT recently launched superscoring . Superscoring allows ACT test-takers to count their highest section and composite scores as official scores. Colleges ultimately have the final say in how they review these scores, but superscoring can be a valuable tool for students who plan on taking the ACT at least twice.

As we saw with Bates College above, many colleges already have their own superscoring policies in place.

They should elaborate on their website what these policies look like, which can vary widely. Some require submission of all test scores, for example, while others might only consider the highest scores submitted.

Here’s what Stanford says about superscoring on its website:

To make the most of superscoring opportunities, students should plan on taking the ACT at least twice.

Some students worry that taking the ACT two or three times may reflect badly on their college applications. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!

Most students take the ACT at least twice, and many experience a score increase the second or third time around. There is no evidence to suggest that taking the ACT more than once impacts the college admissions decision.

What is a Good ACT Score for 2022?

Most students assume that because 36 is the highest possible ACT score (both composite and individual), it’s a “good” ACT score.

Yet while a 36 will definitely add a competitive edge to an application, anything less than a 36 isn’t necessarily a bad  ACT score.

In fact, it all comes down to how you define a “good” ACT score . We have 2 definitions for this.

• “Good” is anything that is “above average” with sectional scores and percentile rankings
• “Good” is anything that will look competitive on a college application

Let’s start with the first definition.

Good ACT Score #1: The “Above Average” ACT Score

ACT regularly releases a “National Norms” report for ACT scores . This includes data from all ACT test scores reported for the 2023-2024 period (although these scores could be from 2021, 2022, and 2023 class graduates).

The most recent National Norms ACT Report includes the average section and composite scores of those reported between 2022 and 2023.

Here’s what they are:

Using the first definition of a “good” ACT score, a composite score of 20 or higher on the ACT could be considered a competitive score for 2023.

At the very least, we encourage students who are new to the ACT to aim for a target score that is above national averages, on individual sections and the whole test itself.

This would mean establishing a goal score of the following on each section:

Of course, your starting score may be higher than a composite of 21, so we also recommend that students start with a diagnostic ACT to see where they currently stand.

Good ACT Score #2: The College Competitive ACT Score

Of course, scoring above-average on the ACT is just  one  interpretation of what it means to do well on the test.

In the context of college entrance, one student’s “good” ACT score could be vastly different than another student’s. It just comes down to where you are applying and the average ACT scores of admitted applicants.

So, we like to say that, under this definition, a ‘good ACT score’ is the one that is right for you given your college aspirations. This will  probably be close to the ACT scores of admitted applicants. 

Plenty of universities specify ACT score ranges of successful applicants on their websites (although some are not public with this information).  

Most do so by specifying the ‘Middle 50,’ or the 25th and 75th percentile of accepted students’ ACT scores.

Here’s a sampling of the Middle 50s from various elite institutions:

Source :  The National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS (2019)

And here are the Middle 50s of ACT score ranges of successful applicants to the top 499 U.S. colleges and universities.

If the colleges on your list do not specify these score ranges on their websites, you can check out the Common Data Set, an effort to give clear, relevant information to everyone involved in the college admissions process about universities’ “institutional priorities.”

What are institutional priorities? These refer to what a college cares about when it’s admitting an incoming class.

The Common Data Set for Princeton University , for example, contains information about the university’s enrollment, admissions, financial aid, and more. A school’s CDS should also include details about test scores of admitted applicants, as Princeton’s shows here:  

Princeton’s CDS also breaks down ACT scores into 25th and 75th percentiles. You can use these percentiles to understand competitive scores of admitted applicants.

For example, one can safely conclude based on this CDS that 50% of admitted applicants to Princeton in 2022-2023 had ACT composite scores ranging from 34 to 35.

SAT and ACT Score Comparison

How do ACT scores compare to SAT scores?

The two college entrance exams are pretty different. But it is possible to figure out what an ACT score generally aligns with on the SAT, and vice versa.

In fact, in 2018, ACT and the CollegeBoard completed what’s called a “Concordance Study,” which examined the relationship between ACT scores and SAT scores. ACT emphasizes that this study does not “equate scores” but can be a “helpful tool for finding comparable scores.”

Translation: It’s impossible to pinpoint exact equivalences, but it is possible to approximate.

Here is one of the score comparison tables that resulted from this study, which compares ACT Composites to SAT Composites. Notice how this table also includes an “SAT Range,” designed to compensate for fluctuations in test difficulty.

ACT also has a digital tool on its website that allows for quick score comparison calculations:

Ideally, students should choose one test to prepare for as they plan their college application journey. All U.S. colleges accept both tests equally. Not sure which test is the best fit for you? We can help .

Download ACT Score Ranges of 499 Colleges

Curious about what ACT score you need to get into your dream school?

We’ve compiled the ACT score ranges of successful applicants to the top 499 U.S. colleges in one simple document, which you can download for free below!

Here’s what you’ll get with this handy resource:

• Middle 50 ACT composite scores for the top 499 U.S. colleges and universities
• Middle 50 ACT sectional scores for English and Math
• Admit rate for each college
• All based on the most recent available data (2019)

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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5 Tips to Score a 12 On Your ACT Essay

There is no question that the ACT is important for high school students who are thinking about applying to college. While the multiple choice sections are designed to assess students’ knowledge in math, English, science and reading, there is also a writing section that assesses students’ abilities to write an essay. Doing well on this section of the ACT can help distinguish you as an accomplished writer to colleges.

Though you can easily understand your score a multiple choice test, you might be left wondering what will earn you a good score on the ACT essay. If you’re aiming for a 12 on the ACT essay, read on for some tips and tricks!

What is the ACT Essay?

While the multiple choice sections of the ACT might be more unforgiving, the ACT essay is a great opportunity to show off your writing skills. According the ACT website, you should aim to write a “unified, coherent essay” in which you:

• clearly state your own perspective on the issue and analyze the relationship between your perspective and at least one other perspective
• develop and support your ideas with reasoning and examples
• organize your ideas clearly and logically
• communicate your ideas effectively in Standard written English.

To see these ideas in motion, you can take a look at a sample ACT prompt and essay here .

How is the ACT Essay scored?

The ACT essay is scored on a scale of 1 to 12. Your essay will be read and scored by two different grades on a scale of 1 to 6 in four different domains, for a total score out of 12 in each of these four domains. These four scores will then be averaged for a total score out of 12.

For more information about how this section of the test is scored, you can look at the official ACT Writing Test Scoring Rubric .

Tip 1: Know what a 12 looks like

In general, if you are aiming to do well in something, you should know what  exemplary work looks like and try to emulate it. This is certainly the case for the ACT Essay, so before you walk into the testing center to write your essay, make sure you know know what essays that scored a 12 in this section look like!

Be sure to read as many sample essays as you can find—these should be available online through a quick Google search. Keep in mind, though, that the structure of the writing section changed in Fall 2015, so make sure that the examples you are looking at are current and align with the structure of the current essay prompt.

As you’re looking at essays that scored a 12, be sure to also look at essays that scored in the middle and essays that received a poor score. Try to understand what went wrong in the poorly scored essays as well as what could be improved in the middle-scoring ones. Take note of what was successful in the high-scoring sample essays that you read—what makes these essays stand out from the middle-scoring ones?

If there are notes from graders that justify the scores of the essays, be sure to pay attention to these as well. Aiming for a high score on the ACT essay section means that you need to try to understand exactly what the graders are looking for. Study the rubric once more and remember what you’ll need to accomplish in each category.

Tip 2: Pick a perspective and stick to it

When it comes to the writing prompt, the ACT website says “ The test describes an issue and provides three different perspectives on the issue. You are asked to read and consider the issue and perspectives, state your own perspective on the issue, and analyze the relationship between your perspective and at least one other perspective on the issue. Your score will not be affected by the perspective you take on the issue.”

In order to write a strong essay, you can choose whatever perspective you like—just make sure it’s one that you can support and defend effectively throughout your essay. Scorers are looking for a strong, well-organized point of view, and like it says above, it doesn’t matter whether you agree, disagree, or are somewhere in the middle; what matters is the writing.

It is important to remember that even if you don’t agree with the perspective that you’re writing from on a personal level, your essay needs to show that you can effectively argue a point. In addition, make sure to remember to relate your perspective to one of the perspectives provided in the prompt. Be sure to address the counter arguments as well in one of your body paragraphs, using the perspective opposite to your personal perspective to demonstrate your understanding of opposing views.

Tip 3: Use concrete examples

Grounding your writing in concrete examples is one extremely important element of writing effective ACT essay. You could use this as an opportunity to show off your historical knowledge by relating your argument to a relevant fact or event in history or current events, or you could come up with a rhetorical scenario or example. Including examples might even mean including a personal anecdote (although if you do end up doing this, you should make sure that your story is short and relates directly to your argument).

Take a look at the ways in which the writers of sample essays that scored a 12 managed to seamlessly incorporate examples into their writing. While you don’t have to be an expert on the essay topic, nor are you expected to be able to list off obscure facts and trivia about it, you need to make sure that your essay draws from real concrete examples rather that just vague abstract arguments.

Tip 4: Don’t be afraid to show off your language skills

One of the markers of a successful ACT essay is its use of language. This is a great opportunity to show off some of your ACT/SAT vocabulary words that you might have been studying for the English section of the test. Opt for higher-level vocabulary words when given the chance—as a general rule of thumb, you should aim to use about 1-2 higher level vocab words per paragraph.

Scorers want to see that you can navigate the English language skillfully, and so you should also take the chance to vary your sentence structure when you get the chance. Consider, also, utilizing devices such as rhetorical questions and complex sentences.

If you are going to use more complicated vocabulary and grammar structures, however, make sure you fully understand how to use them. It will reflect poorly upon your writing skills if you include a complicated word that doesn’t make sense in the context of a sentence, or if a grammatical structure that you try to use isn’t quite right. If you’re going to use a semicolon to combine two sentences, for example, make sure you understand that a semicolon is not the same thing as a comma. When in doubt, stick to what you know! It is better to have a less complicated structure that is used correctly versus an attempt at a more advanced grammatical concept that is actually wrong.

Lastly, be sure to keep it real in your writing. While scorers want to see students who are skilled in their use of the english language, it is easy to tell when someone is simply trying to electrify their vocabulary in order to titillate the reader for the written examination. Your writing and tone should reflect who you are as a writer, so remember to keep it down to earth.

Tip 5: Pay attention to timing & your energy level

For the essay section, you will get 40 minutes. This includes time for planning, writing, and editing, so make sure you dole out the appropriate amount of time for each part of the process. You can practice this by timing yourself to write an essay from a sample prompt at home. Start by giving yourself an hour, and gradually work it down to 40 minutes so that you are prepared by the time the testing date rolls around. If you find that you need more time for planning than you do writing, or if you come to learn that you need a particularly large chunk of time to edit, keep these things in mind when it comes time to write your essay for the exam.

The essay will be the last section on the test, so keep this in mind while you complete the multiple choice sections of the ACT. While you should be devoting your full attention and energy to each multiple choice section of the test, keep in mind that once you are finished with all of the multiple choice sections, you will still have to write the essay.

When you get breaks between sections, be sure to eat a snack, drink some water, and use the restroom so that you are not uncomfortable or distracted by the end of the test. While you might be tempted to just breeze through the essay section so that you can finish the ACT, know that you will not be allowed to leave the testing center until everyone has finished the test—so be sure to use up all of the allotted time!

For more information about the ACT and essay writing, check out these blog posts:

What to Bring (And Not Bring) to the ACT

10 Tips to Improve Your ACT Score

Ultimate Guide to the New SAT Essay

A Guide to the Optional ACT Writing Section

Want to know how your SAT score/ACT score impacts your chances of acceptance to your dream schools? Our free Chancing Engine will not only help you predict your odds, but also let you know how you stack up against other applicants, and which aspects of your profile to improve. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to gain access to our Chancing Engine and get a jumpstart on your college strategy!

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How Does the ACT Work, and What’s a Good Score?

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The ACT is one of the two main college readiness exams. Like they do with the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), admissions offices use your ACT score to help determine if you’re a good fit for their college or university.

Both tests are widely used, but recently, the ACT has become more popular than the SAT. Over two million students take the ACT every year, while about 1.7 million take the SAT. It’s easy to feel like all standardized tests are the same, but these tests measure two different things.

The SAT measures your ability to learn, and the ACT measures what you’ve already learned. They’re two completely different approaches to determining your “college readiness,” but both are well-respected, and most schools don’t have a preference for one or the other.

The ACT was developed by a college professor in response to his frustrations with the SAT, which at the time was the only means of gauging how prepared students were for college. As an educator, he felt it was far better to know that your students had the necessary prerequisite knowledge than to know how good they were at learning.

Tomato, to-mah-to, you’re taking the ACT. Here’s what you need to know about it.

Quick facts on the ACT

Eligibility requirements: none

Length: three hours and 30 minutes

Sections: four required (English, math, reading, science), one optional (writing)

Number of questions: 215 (plus an essay prompt)

Types of questions: multiple choice, essay (writing section only)

Score range: 1–36

Cost: $46 without the writing section, $62.50 with the writing section

What does ACT stand for? ACT technically stands for American College Testing, but the test is administered by an organization of the same name, and they simply refer to it as the ACT.

What does the ACT test you on?

The ACT tests you based on things you should learn by the end of your senior year of high school. We’ll tell you what to expect from each section and give you some tips, but first, here’s a tip that applies to every multiple choice section:

Never leave a question blank. You aren’t penalized for wrong answers, so even if you have absolutely no clue what the answer is, take a guess!

ACT English Test

Length: 45 minutes

Number of questions: 75

The English section of the ACT will measure your mastery of the nuts and bolts of prose. Rather than asking you to retrieve information or think critically about a passage, you’ll examine individual phrases, sentences, or paragraphs.

The makers of the test say that the English section “measures your understanding of the conventions of standard English (punctuation, usage, and sentence structure), production of writing (topic development, organization, unity, and cohesion), and knowledge of language (word choice, style, and tone).”

There are several varieties of multiple choice questions, but they’re all based on passages. If a passage has underlined sections, some of the questions will ask you to improve those parts with one of the options provided. If none of the suggested changes improve the passage, you can choose “no change” (this is pretty common).

You may be asked to change a passage to create a specific effect, like building a stronger transition between two thoughts or rearranging sentences to form a more logical progression. You’ll also be asked about how particular changes might affect the passage, or what information a particular section provides.

According to national data from the ACT, this is the section most people score lowest on.

Tip: This test gives you the least amount of time per question, so don’t waste time on tough questions. Guess, and come back to them later if there’s time.If you don’t have extra time at the end, think about how many more questions you were able to get through!   It’s sunk-cost economics at work.

ACT Mathematics Test

Length: 60 minutes

Number of questions: 60

All of the questions of the math section of the ACT are solvable without a calculator. Still, using one could save you some precious time. Here’s how the makers of the test break down the questions:

• Number and quantity (7–10%)
• Algebra (12–15%)
• Functions (12–15%)
• Geometry (12–15%)
• Statistics and probability (8–12%)
• Modeling (less than 25%)
• Integrating essential skills (about 15%)

You’ll need to know the basic terminology and formulas for basic high school math. Be sure to read how the ACT describes each math section .

The ACT has already done a huge favor for you: the questions in each section appear in order of difficulty, so the easiest ones come first. That doesn’t always mean they’ll be the easiest ones for you , so you’ll still want to skim ahead if you get stuck on one.

Tip: Before you start solving a problem, take a look at the possible answers. They may help you decide how to approach the problem.

ACT Reading Test

Length: 35 minutes

Number of questions: 40

The reading section of the ACT contains four passages with 10 questions each. These are designed to test your reading comprehension, and the questions will ask you to summarize pieces of the passage, make inferences from the text, and identify key information. The bulk of the questions will be about the ideas and details in the passages.

The four passages come from the same four subjects every year, and they always appear in the following order:

• Social science
• Natural science

According to national data from the ACT, this is the section people score highest on.

Tip: Answers on the reading section are deliberately trying to trick you. There may be multiple answers that look correct. Before you read the possible answers, try to answer the question for yourself when possible. Then it’ll be harder for those almost right answers to mislead you—because you’ll be looking for a specific answer.

ACT Science Test

For the science section of the ACT, you won’t be expected to have advanced knowledge of any particular kind of science, but you will need a general understanding of these subjects:

• Meteorology

The majority of this test involves interpreting data and working with experiment results. Like the reading and English sections of the ACT, science questions are based on a passage. You’ll have between four and seven questions per passage.

The passages you’ll work from will take these three formats:

• Data representation (30-40%)
• Research summaries (45-55%)
• Conflicting viewpoints (15-20%)

Data representation questions will focus on tables and graphs, and they’ll test your ability to interpret scientific data.

Research summaries will focus on experiments, and you’ll be asked about the design of the experiment and the conclusions drawn from the results.

Conflicting viewpoints questions ask you to analyze and compare two hypotheses or views that are based on different premises or incomplete data.

ACT Writing Test

Length: 40 minutes

Number of questions: one

The writing section is the only part of the test that doesn’t affect your composite score. (It is optional, after all.) The test will present three perspectives on an issue, and you’ll respond with an essay.

Regardless of the prompt, your essay will have the same three expectations:

• Analyze and evaluate the perspectives given.
• State and develop your own perspective on the issue.
• Explain the relationship between your perspective and those given.

Should I take the ACT Writing Test?

It definitely won’t count against you if you don’t take the optional section of the ACT. So if you’re a terrible writer, that’s probably a good choice. However, since it doesn’t count towards your composite score, and it can provide the admissions office with a more personal representation of your academic capabilities, it’s a good idea to take it.

A big shiny ACT score can certainly make your college applications stand out, but people can only learn so much about you from a number. There’s no guarantee a college will use your ACT essay, but if you’re a good writer, this is a positive differentiator that not every applicant is going to have.

Personally, I’d recommend it.

How do ACT scores work?

On the ACT, you gain points for correct answers, and you don’t lose points for incorrect answers.

You’ll receive a separate score for each section of the ACT: English, math, reading, science, and writing (optional). Scores range from 1 to 36 on each section—with the exception of the writing section, where scores range from 2 to 12. These scores are averaged into your “composite score.”

Your score report will show your score and percentile in each section, plus two additional sections: STEM , and ELA (English Language Arts). These are good indicators of your competency in specific subjects, but when someone says, “What’s your ACT score?” they’re asking about your composite score. ACT.org can walk you through each part of your ACT score report .

You’ll be able to view your scores online about two weeks after the exam, and you’ll get your score report in the mail within 2-8 weeks.

What’s a good ACT score?

While a perfect SAT score is 2,400, a perfect ACT score is just 36. But less than .1% of all ACT test-takers get a perfect score. So what’s a good ACT score?

The average ACT score is 21. But sitting smack dab in the middle isn’t going to make your application stand out. And for schools that want to build on their reputation for excellence, a mediocre score may not be good enough (unless you have an exceptional portfolio or something else to show off).

A good score is different for every school

Unless a school explicitly states a minimum ACT score you need to be admitted, you have to look at the students who are actually accepted to determine a “good score.” Whatever schools you’re looking at, you can see the range of standardized test scores for students they’ve accepted. You can even compare the bottom 25% of accepted students and the top 75%. If the other pieces of your application are strong, you can probably get by with a lower score.

Ivy League schools , for example, have significantly higher standards than the national average, and their students’ average ACT scores range from as low as 29 to as high as 35 (or from the 92nd percentile to the 99th).

So a good score really depends on what school you want to go to. But unless you’re looking at a top-tier school—one with a notoriously low acceptance rate—scoring in the top 75% of all test takers should be good enough for most schools. That means a good score is 24 or higher.

But what do you mean by “a good score”?

Of course, good is a relative term. Maybe by “good” you mean scoring in the top 90%? In that case, you’re shooting for a 28 or higher. And yes, four points can make that big of a difference. Sometimes getting a single point higher on your composite score can make a difference of 7%.

While a score around 24 should get you into most schools, scoring 28 or higher will have some schools throwing money at you, begging you to be one of their students.

Now that you know more about what to aim for, let’s talk about what to do with a bad score.

What happens if you get a bad score on the ACT?

No matter how much you study, there are lots of factors that can add up to a bad test day. Lack of sleep, poor diet, not exercising regularly, health issues, stress, and distractions make it harder to perform your best under pressure.

Thankfully, you can retake the ACT as many times as you want. And ACT.org says that 57% of people who retake the ACT improve their score.

When it comes time to submit your ACT score to a school, you can choose to submit your highest composite score. So if you have a bad test day, no one even has to know. This doesn’t mean you can pick and choose your best results from each section, though. If you did really well on different sections on different days, you may want to share both scores—but you can’t blend them into a new composite score like some kind of ACT Frankenstein.

How do you prepare for the ACT?

Like all standardized tests, the best way to prepare for the ACT is to take practice tests. You should certainly study the terms and concepts you’ll need to be familiar with (especially for the math and science sections), but when it comes down to it, practice is the best route to a high score.

The best practice tests will give you explanations for why one answer is correct, and the others are wrong. To make sure you’re getting the most relevant practice, be sure to check out the materials provided by ACT.org, the makers of the test.

Here are some free practice questions they provide, with explanations for each answer:

• English practice questions
• Math practice questions
• Reading practice questions
• Science practice questions
• Writing samples

Let us know in the comments if there’s anything else you wish we would’ve told you about the ACT. Good luck in your studies!

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Does ACT cater for students with any form of learning disability? For instance this student is able to write ACT but would need special accommodation, like additional time, would such special accommodation be allowed for the ACT exam? This student has a condition called Impaired Processing Speed (IPS). An official report to that effect can always be forwarded to the relevant office of ACT when and if necessary.

I kindly await your advice.

Yes, the ACT offers accomodations for documented learning needs. Here’s where they talk about that: https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/registration/accommodations.html

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Is it possible to send my composite score without the writing?

So I got a 35 on the february ACT, which I am perfectly happy with but the problem is that I got an 8 on the writing section. So, I was wondering if it is possible to send in the composite score (35) and all the subsections but not the writing score?

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

@thefatpokemon Did the essay scores/writing for Feb 2018 ACT got released?

OP, no. You can’t split up the Composite from the Writing score.

However, I wouldn’t stress over the score. 8 is solid. Most colleges won’t really care about the Writing. And if they do, 8 will not be the reason they reject you.

@mmk2015 Is 3/4 correct.

• You can't split up composite and writing
• Most colleges DO care about the writing...just not as much as composite score
• 8 will not be the reason they reject you

Well, it certainly depends on the school, but many colleges do not even require the writing portion and I think those that do aren’t weighing it heavily. There have been many many threads here asking this same question, particularly in the past year or so. I think they’ve changed the way the ACT essays are being graded, because a lot of kids are reporting very high composites with relatively lower Writing scores. I have 2 daughters in this camp, and both have had very good results with admissions so I would not worry about this. I have no inside information though.

@suzy100 Think about it. The OP has a 35 so will likely be applying to top colleges. Most top colleges WANT an ACT with writing. Why do you think this is? The writing section is a timed pressured prompt where a student must articulate their skills in a short period of time with no advance idea of what the subject matter is. Unlike college apps and college essays where students can pick a question they are comfortable with, have other students, teachers and parents proofread their essays. Totally different animal.

@thefatpokemon

ACT 35 is a great score and writing 8 is good as well

You can send your ACT with

AP English Language and Composition (5) AP English Literature and Composition (5)

5 definitely can demonstrate your English capability.

@Luska19 , I’ve thought about it. Older D applied to 3 top 20 schools. She had a 35 and an 8 on her writing score. She was admitted to 2 of those 3. One is an Ivy. Younger D has a 35 with a 9 in writing. She has been admitted to a top 20 school early, and another out of state public whose out of state acceptance rate is I believe 18%. It’s certainly anecdotal, and I specifically disclaimed inside information, and I don’t claim to be an expert but that is the basis for my advice on this.

@suzy100 If you read what I posted before I said an 8 was fine. I’m speaking in regards to you saying that the writing score wouldn’t weigh too heavily on admissions.

And I stand by that statement, @Luska19 .

@suzy100 Then you need to look at the scoring scale of English crossed with the writing score. Top colleges will NOT be happy with a 7 or especially below a 7.

Directly from Prepscholar "Why Do Schools Require ACT Writing? You may be surprised to learn that not all schools require the ACT Writing test! But those that do think they have a pretty good reason. These schools think that your essay score, combined with your English and Reading ACT scores, can help them understand your grasp of English and your ability to produce a sample of writing under pressure. This is quite a different skill compared to what they see when you submit your personal statement and essays in your application. They are assuming that those have been proofread by 50 of your closest friends and family members, and that they have been heavily edited and reviewed for hours on end. So while your personal statement is more like a heavily photoshopped selfie in flattering lighting, ACT Writing is like a candid snapshot of your writing abilities.

Specifically, these schools want to get a better idea of your ability to defend a point of view and your reasoning skills. Can you write logically and coherently? Can you use proper sentence structure without Word telling you what you have done wrong? The Writing Test is your chance to prove all those skills. And, apart from your application, the combined English/Language Arts ACT score has another use for many schools. They may actually use your score on this test to help place you into different levels of English classes—so it can potentially save you the trouble of taking a placement test once you arrive at college in the fall."

@Luska19 , I’ve seen that article by Prepscholar. They have a vested interest in this - they make money on kids taking ACT prep with them. I do not.

And why are you referencing an article about getting a 7 on the ACT essay? That’s not even the situation here. Why are you so vested in this? I’m not asking this rhetorically, I just don’t get it.

@suzy100 Because I’ve seen others give advice to kids that writing scores on ACT don’t matter at all or very little. That’s simply not true. Again most top schools require the writing for a reason. As well if you take a students English score and cross reference with a low writing score it drops their ELA score significantly. The reference to the article was not about getting a 7 on the ACT. As I stated above an 8 or higher is sufficient and the higher the better obviously.

• Understand how credit scores work 
• 1. Consider credit-building options
• 2. Request credit limit increase
• 3. Avoid applying for new lines of credit 
• 4. Keep old credit accounts open  
• 5. Resolve any accounts that are past due 

6. Monitor your credit reports

Improving credit score frequently asked questions (faq), how to improve your credit score.

Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us and terms apply to offers listed (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate products and services to help you make smart decisions with your money.

• Your credit score is mostly determined by your payment history and credit utilization ratio.
• You can look into credit-building products such as secured credit cards or credit builder loans.
• Finally, you should always monitor your credit report for errors or inaccuracies.

Your credit score represents how likely you are to pay off your debts , from credit cards to mortgages. The higher your credit score on a scale from 300 to 850, the lower the risk you pose to lenders. A good credit score qualifies you for better interest rates and other perks which can save you thousands of dollars when you start taking out larger loans or make milestone purchases such as a home. Your credit score can also determine your qualifications for an apartment rental.

It can be difficult to star improving credit or building credit from scratch since bad credit is self-perpetuating. If you have a bad credit score , you'll have a harder time accessing credit. Additionally, your loans have greater interest rates because lenders see you as a risky investment. You have a harder time keeping up with payments, which causes you to fall behind. That cycle repeats.

Re-building credit is an uphill battle, though there are ways to reverse the cycle. 

Understand how credit scores work 

Before we talk about how to improve your credit score, we need to understand a little more about how credit scores are calculated .

Credit scores are a reflection of your credit reports , which are documents created by the three major credit bureaus  — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — that record your credit history. It will list your credit accounts, when they were opened, the current balances at the time of the report, and your payment history (on-time, late, and missed payments).

Credit scoring companies, such as FICO and VantageScore , feed your credit report through an algorithm that grades your credit history and assigns it a credit score. While companies keep the algorithms they use under wraps, but we have a general gist of how your credit report turns into your credit score.

With a general understanding of how your credit information turns into your credit score, we can start considering ways to improve your credit.

1. Consider credit-building products

If you're starting with bad or no credit, you will need to seek out products that are available to you. This often comes in the form of credit-building products, which are designed so you can borrow money without posing too much risk to the lenders that offer these options.

Secured credit card

Secured credit cards are credit cards backed by a security deposit you place when you first open the card. The deposit also becomes your credit limit. Because you're technically borrowing against your own money when you use your secured credit card, your credit activities pose very little risk for credit card companies. This means you can qualify for a secured card with bad credit. There are some (though not many) secured credit cards that don't require a hard credit check when you apply. 

You can find our guide on the best secured credit cards here.

Credit builder loans

Credit builder loans are another great way to build credit from scratch. When you take out one of these loans, the lender sets aside the money that you "borrow." You will then make monthly payments over the payment term, usually 12-36 months, that the creditor reports to the credit bureaus. Once the term is complete and your loan is paid off, you get that money that the lender set aside. 

Related : The best loans for fair credit »

Similar to secured credit cards, the lender's money is never really at risk. Many credit builder loans don't even conduct a hard inquiry on your credit. Application credentials, if any, usually rely on the information from your primary checking account.

Build credit while building savings, starting at $25 a month.

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• Check mark icon A check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction. Customers eligible for Visa secured credit card
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• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Relatively high APRs for credit builder loan
• con icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. Only 24-month payment periods available

Self's credit builder loan is one of the few credit-builder loans available in all 50 states. Self offers four payment plans between $25 and $150 per month, all of which take 24 months to complete. Self doesn't perform a hard credit inquiry, and it reports to all three credit bureaus, but that's the bare minimum for a loan designed to build credit.

• No hard credit report pull
• Reports to all 3 bureaus
• Build credit AND savings
• Join over 1 million credit builders
• Unlock a Secured Credit Card after meeting eligibility criteria
• 24 months loan duration

Rent reporting services

Much of your credit score is determined by how well you can keep up with monthly balances. However, a significant portion of your monthly expenses doesn't show up on your credit report. For example, in most cases, your monthly rent doesn't impact credit scores .

A rent reporting service is a third-party company that reports rent payments to the credit bureaus, so you can build credit on payments you're already making. There are similar services, such as Experian Boost , that report other monthly payments such as your monthly subscription fees and utility bills. 

While these can help, there are some limits. For one, some rent reporting services require your landlord's approval. However, many of the best rent reporting services do not. Additionally, not all credit scoring models factor rent into their calculations, even if they show up on your credit report. While VantageScore 3.0 and FICO 9 include reported rent, FICO 8 (one of the most widely used credit scoring models) does not.

Become an authorized user

If you know anyone who would be willing to add you to their credit card, becoming an authorized user on someone's credit card will help you build credit. This option is popular for parents building credit for their children. "Authorized users can see an increase in their credit score because the payment history for the primary cardholder will be reported under their credit file," says Brandon R. Amaral, a Certified Financial Planner and founder of Amaral Financial Planning. 

While becoming an authorized user will affect your payment history, it will also affect your credit utilization ratio , the amount of credit you're using compared to your total available credit. This can end up hurting you.

For example, let's say you're an authorized user on a card with a $4,000 limit. The primary cardholder has a credit limit of $30,000 including other cards they use while you just have the one card. They can spend $1,500 on that card, and they'll only be using 5% of their credit. Meanwhile, that charge leaves you with a utilization ratio of 37.5% already.

2. Request a credit limit increase on credit cards

It's generally recommended to keep the credit utilization ratio on your revolving credit accounts under 30%. That said, every dollar that you're in debt has an impact on your credit score. If you're having a hard time keeping that down with your current limit, you should consider requesting a credit limit increase on your credit cards. "If your income has increased, most credit card companies are happy to increase your credit limit," Amaral says. 

Most of these credit card companies have some kind of portal through which you can request a credit limit increase, and will respond to your request in minutes if not seconds. You can make these requests every six months. However, you will need a spotless payment history to get a limit increase. A credit limit increase request may also trigger a hard inquiry on your credit.

3. Avoid applying for new lines of credit 

It may be tempting to open new lines of credit when you're trying to build credit. However, every time you apply for a new loan or a new credit card, the credit reporting agencies receive what is called a hard inquiry, which is then recorded on your credit report. One hard inquiry may drop your credit score by a few points, but these compound exponentially with each additional hard inquiry. This is because creditors will wonder why you're taking out so much credit in such a short period of time, and, more importantly, if you're good for it.

A new line of credit will also drop the average account age, another factor that credit scoring models consider. "Every time you apply for a new line of credit, your credit score will initially drop," Amaral says. "This is because your average account age will decrease from adding new credit cards." 

4. Keep old credit accounts open  

Maybe you don't really use that first credit card you qualified for. Instead of canceling it, just stow it away. Canceling it will reduce the average age of accounts on your credit report, which will hurt your credit score. Additionally, Amaral says "closing an old card that has most of your good payment history will hurt your score." 

Another reason closing a credit card can hurt your credit is because its credit limit will no longer be included in your utilization ratio. 

If you do keep an old credit card open and forget to use it occasionally, the bank could actually close it due to inactivity. "What they can do is place a small, recurring bill on that credit card, so that it continues to build history and isn't at risk of being closed due to inactivity," Amaral says.

5. Resolve any accounts that are past due 

Bringing past-due accounts current is a key step in improving your credit scores. Remember that payment history is 35% of your credit scores, so the sooner you have a positive payment history, the better. Amaral suggests reviewing all your payment plans and interest rates and developing a strategy to pay off the loans or accounts to minimize the interest they will pay. Once the accounts are current, you can revise your payment plan to pay the accounts each month to pay off the entire balance. 

If your credit payment is already in delinquency, meaning it's at least 30 days late, the damage to your credit can be severe. However, you can attempt to get the delinquency on your credit report removed through a goodwill letter. This is more likely to work if you have a history of keeping your balances in check. 

Your credit report isn't infallible. In fact, errors on your credit reports are quite common, and errors are steadily rising. In 2021, 34% of consumers found an error on their credit reports.

These errors can be as innocuous as a misspelled name, but they can also be damaging to your credit score, such as a misreported delinquency or a hard inquiry that you didn't approve. While you should be disputing errors on your credit report regardless of their severity, these bigger issues warrant additional investigation. If, for example, you find an entire line of credit that you didn't open on your credit report, you're likely the victim of identity theft . 

You can monitor your credit by reviewing free credit reports from the credit bureaus. You can request these credit reports from each of the three credit bureaus weekly. You can also sign up for a credit monitoring service, which notifies you of any updates to your credit report or credit score. Some of the best credit monitoring services are even free.

For more heavy duty monitoring, you can sign up for identity theft protection . These services will monitor your identity and provide recovery tools if it is stolen. You can find our guide on the best identity theft protection services here.

When working on your credit, it's important to note that improvements to your credit score will slow as it rises. It's easier to get your credit from a bad score to a good score than it is to improve your credit from a good score to an excellent credit score .

It's also worth mentioning that building credit takes time, as frustrating as that is to hear. You can be doing everything right, paying off your bills on time and keeping your utilization ratio low, but if your accounts are relatively new, you will need to be patient.

Most negative information, such as a delinquency, falls off your credit report after seven years. Chapter 7 bankruptcies fall off your credit report after 10 years.

No, checking your credit report does not affect your credit score. Checking your credit results in a soft inquiry on your credit report 

The average credit score is a 718 FICO score and 701 VantageScore, both of which are good credit scores .

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Please note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.

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Is it recommended to take the Optional Essay for the ACT if you’re planning on going to an Ivy League/prestigious school?

hello! currently I’m a junior who is studying for the ACT on February 11. However I’m kind of stuck on whether or not I should do the optional Essay. I plan on hopefully attending an Ivy League/ prestigious schools like MIT, Harvard, Colombia, etc. I also plan on going into the STEAM field (like the pre-med and engineering path). Any advise is appreciated. Thanks

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, texas a&m gpa and act requirements.

Rising Senior here! Have been going back and forth about applying to Texas A&M. In addition to GPA, I've heard they also take into account your ACT score. What is the average GPA and ACT score for an incoming freshman at Texas A&M? How do they handle situations where one is high and the other is a bit low?

Texas A&M certainly does consider both your GPA and ACT score when evaluating your application. Most successful applicants to Texas A&M have a high GPA in a challenging course load and solid ACT scores, but they do utilize a holistic admissions process, so other factors like your extracurricular involvement and essays will also be considered.

Regarding your GPA, while Texas A&M does not officially publish an average high school GPA for its incoming freshman class, a large majority of admitted students generally have a GPA of 3.5 and above on a 4.0 scale. Yet, remember that your course rigor matters a lot too. Selective colleges like Texas A&M prefer students who have taken challenging courses in high school, such as AP or IB classes, and have done well in them.

As for the ACT, the middle 50% composite score for the incoming freshman class tends to range between 26 and 32. That said, some students are admitted with scores below this range and some with scores above it. If your ACT score falls below the 26 mark, a higher GPA could help balance out a lower ACT score. Similarly, a lower GPA might be offset by a higher ACT score.

If you're worried about a lower GPA or ACT score, make sure to underscore your strengths in other sections of your application. For instance, a strong essay or distinctive extracurricular involvement can help you stand out. In your personal statement or supplemental essays, highlight unique experiences or perspectives you would bring to Texas A&M's campus. With your extracurriculars, try to demonstrate commitment and leadership.

For accurate deadlines and requirements, definitely check out Texas A&M's official admissions webpage. Best of luck with your application process!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

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Fact-checking JD Vance’s past statements and relationship with Trump

This fact check originally appeared on PolitiFact .

Former President Donald Trump has selected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate.

“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” Trump wrote July 15 on Truth Social.

Vance, 39, won his Senate seat in 2022 with Trump’s backing. He would be one of the youngest vice presidents in U.S. history.

But before becoming one of Trump’s fiercest allies and defenders, Vance sharply criticized the former president. During the 2016 presidential election, Vance wrote that he goes “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”

WATCH: 2024 RNC delegates react to Trump shooting

He has since sounded a different tone including in defending Trump’s actions in the events leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Vance was critical of Vice President Mike Pence’s handling of the 2020 election results certification and in an interview with Kaitlan Collins on CNN questioned whether the vice president’s life was actually endangered during the riots. Vance also vocally condemned what he sees as the tenor of political rhetoric, which he tied to an assassination attempt during Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance posted on X shortly after the shooting. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Who is J.D. Vance and what is his relationship with Trump?

Before winning his Senate seat in 2022, Vance worked as an investor, commentator and bestselling author.

Vance, who was born in Middleton, Ohio, served in the U.S. Marine Corps before attending Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He worked as a corporate lawyer before moving into the tech industry as a venture capitalist.

WATCH: JD Vance’s evolution from Trump critic to running mate

Vance rose to fame through his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which describes his growing up in poverty and details the isolation, violence and drug addiction that often surrounds poor white communities in middle America.

When the book was released, Vance started talking to the media about issues important to people in his community — and started criticizing Trump.

Vance told ABC News in August 2016 that, although Trump successfully “diagnoses the problems” people are facing, he didn’t see Trump “offering many solutions.” In an October 2016 interview with journalist Charlie Rose, Vance said he was a “never-Trump guy.”

In another 2016 interview about his book, Vance told a reporter that, although his background would have made him a natural Trump supporter, “the reason, ultimately, that I am not … is because I think that (Trump) is the most-raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people.”

Vance began to publicly change course when he launched his Senate campaign in 2021. He deleted tweets from 2016 that included him calling Trump “reprehensible” and an “idiot.” In another deleted tweet following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape on which Trump said fame enabled him to grope women, Vance wrote: “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.”

He apologized about his Trump criticisms in a July 2021 Fox News interview, and asked people not to judge him based on what he had said. “I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy,” Vance said. “I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.”

In June, after news circulated that Vance was on Trump’s short list for vice president, Fox News host Bret Baier asked Vance about the comments. Vance said he was wrong about Trump. “He was a great president, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to make sure he gets a second term,” he said.

Trump endorsed Vance in the Ohio GOP Senate primary, helping him win the race and the general election.

As a senator, Vance lobbied to defeat Ohio’s constitutional amendment that ensured access to abortion, calling it a “gut punch” after the measure passed.

After the hazardous East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment in 2023, which ignited a fire and led to evacuations and a controlled release of chemicals, Vance worked with Ohio’s senior senator, Democrat Sherrod Brown, to introduce rail safety legislation.

PolitiFact has fact-checked Vance 10 times. He’s received two Pants on Fire ratings, three Falses, two Mostly Falses and two Half Trues. He also received one Mostly True rating before he was a politician in 2018.

In March, Vance echoed a popular Republican talking point, saying that “100% of net job creation under the Biden administration has gone to the foreign-born.” We rated that Mostly False. Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same time period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million. We rated False Vance’s claim in February that the $95 million Ukraine supplemental aid package included a “hidden impeachment clause against President Trump.” The measure doesn’t mention impeachment.

Because it’s the president’s job to spend congressionally appropriated funds, experts said whoever is elected president next will be responsible for spending the money allocated in the law. It doesn’t target former Trump; it would apply the same way to Biden, should he be reelected.

On immigration, Vance falsely claimed in 2022 that Biden’s “open border” meant that “more Democrat voters were “pouring into this country.” Immigrants who cross the border illegally cannot vote in federal elections. The process for immigrants to become citizens and therefore gain the right to vote can take a decade or longer.

PolitiFact also addressed controversial comments Vance made in 2021, surfaced during his Senate run, about rape being “inconvenient.”

Vance didn’t directly say “rape is inconvenient.” But when he was asked in an interview whether laws should allow people to get abortions if they were victims of rape or incest, he said that society shouldn’t view a pregnancy or birth resulting from rape or incest as “inconvenient.”

In the interview, which occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Vance was also asked whether anti-abortion laws should include rape and incest exceptions. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said in response. “At the end of day, we are talking about an unborn baby. What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded?”

​When asked again about the exceptions, Vance said: “The question portrays a certain presumption that is wrong. It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term, it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.”

Since being on Trump’s vice presidential short list, Vance has expressed a more moderate view on abortion.

On July 7 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” for example, Vance said he supports access to the abortion pill mifepristone after the Supreme Court dismissed the case against it — echoing what Trump said days before during the presidential debate.

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Big changes announced for the ACT college admissions test. What's different?

The modifications, which the company's ceo called "fundamental," won't take effect until the spring of 2025 for online test-takers..

The length of the ACT college admissions test will be slashed for some test-takers as soon as next year, the exam company announced this week.

The test will ask fewer questions and last up to an hour less than the typical three-hour length. In a departure from past years, reading passages will be shorter and the science-related section of the exam will be optional.

The changes to one of the country’s preeminent college admissions exams represent another big shift in the standardized testing landscape, which was battered by the pandemic. They come a few months after the SAT, ACT’s main competitor, underwent a separate overhaul. The College Board, which owns the SAT, also shortened its exam to two hours and swapped out the traditional pen-and-paper format for a completely online one. 

Read more about the SAT overhaul: Big changes are coming to the SAT, and not everyone is happy. What students should know.

Though the vast majority of universities in the U.S. remain test-optional, the modifications to the ACT indicate that many students who still choose to take a college admissions exam in the future will be doing so in a shorter period of time with more abbreviated material. 

“These enhancements are just the beginning,” said Janet Godwin, the CEO of ACT, in a statement this week. 

Fewer questions, science section optional

The bulk of the test will stay the same, Godwin said, and students can still opt to take it online or in person (unlike with the SAT, which is mostly digital now). 

In order to cut the exam’s length by up to a third, the reading and English sections will have 44 fewer questions. The reading passages will also be shorter, Godwin said. Similar to the test’s writing section, the science portion, which can be daunting for some students, will no longer be required. 

“A lot of students find that section intimidating,” said Alyssa Coburn, the chief learning officer for the Illinois test prep company Nurturing Wisdom Tutoring. 

For online test-takers, the changes won’t take effect until the spring of 2025. They’ll come even later, in the spring of 2026, for students planning to take the test on specific school district-sponsored dates . 

How will colleges react? 

Godwin made the announcement just a few months after revealing the testing company would transition to for-profit status amid an acquisition by a private equity firm. Though the decision concerned some observers who think ACT’s mission better aligns with the structure of a nonprofit company, Godwin has defended the move as a necessary step to expand the organization's reach and help more students. 

The larger debate over the merits of relying on standardized testing in college admissions reached a fever pitch during the pandemic, which accelerated a trend of schools axing the ACT and SAT as application requirements. Though some selective institutions have reverted back to asking for them, more than 80% of four-year colleges will leave it up to students this fall to make that choice, according to The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of the testing industry. 

Harry Feder, the organization’s executive director, said the decision this week raises new questions about the value of ACT’s test scores. 

“The ACT didn’t want to be left in the dust as the fusty, old, three-hour, paper-pencil test,” he said. “While these shorter tests are more user-friendly, there is a serious question as to whether college admissions offices should recognize this test.” 

Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, said he still believes the tests are reliable indicators of student success. ACT’s new modifications, in his view, are likely an effort to preserve market share after the College Board's recent overhaul of the SAT. 

“The SAT and the ACT have forever been locked in this competition,” he said. “That continues.” 

Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for   USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele .

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Preparing for the ACT Test with Writing

About the act writing test.

The ACT writing test is a 40-minute essay test that measures your writing skills. The test consists of one writing prompt that will describe a complex issue and present three different perspectives on that issue.  It is a paper-and-pencil test. You will write your essay in pencil (no mechanical pencils or ink pens) on the lined pages of an answer folder that will be provided to you. The only exception is for approved students with diagnosed disabilities who cannot hand write the essay. (See Accommodations .) 

The ACT writing test complements the English and reading tests. The combined information from these tests tells postsecondary institutions about students’ understanding of the conventions of standard written English and their ability to produce a direct sample of writing. The writing test cannot be taken without first taking all four multiple-choice tests in the same session. 

You are asked to read the prompt and write an essay in which you develop your own perspective on the issue. Your essay should analyze the relationship between your perspective and one or more other perspectives. You may adopt a perspective from the prompt, partially or fully, or you may generate your own. Your score will not be affected by the point of view you take on the issue.

Some colleges require the ACT writing test. You should decide whether or not you should take it based on the requirements of the colleges you are applying to or considering.

Why the ACT Writing Test Is Optional 

Because postsecondary institutions have varying needs, we offer the ACT writing test as an option. 

• Postsecondary institutions are making their own decisions about whether to require the results from the ACT writing test for admissions and/or course placement purposes. 
• Students will decide whether to take the writing test based on the requirements of the institutions they are considering. 

Practice Your Writing Skills 

Read. Write. Repeat. 

There are many ways to prepare for the ACT writing test that don't even include writing at all. Reading newspapers and magazines, listening to news analyses on television or radio, and participating in discussions and debates about issues and problems all help you build a foundation for your writing skills. These activities help you become more familiar with current issues, with different perspectives on those issues, and with strategies that skilled writers and speakers use to present their points of view. 

Of course, one of the best ways to prepare for the ACT writing test is to practice writing. But you don’t have to sit at a desk and fill a notebook with essays. Practice writing for different purposes, with different audiences in mind. The writing you do in your English classes will help you. Practice writing stories, poems, plays, editorials, reports, letters to the editor, a personal journal, or other kinds of writing that you do on your own—including, yes, essays. 

The ACT writing test asks you to explain your perspective on an issue in a convincing way, so writing opportunities such as editorials or letters to the editor of a newspaper are especially helpful. Practicing various types of writing will help make you a versatile writer able to adjust to different writing assignments. 

Finally, don’t forget you only have 40 minutes on test day. Get some practice writing within a time limit. This will not only give you an advantage on the test, but also will help you build skills that are important in college-level learning and in the world of work. 

Build Your Writing Skills 

Everyday ways to improve your writing 

You can strengthen your writing skills just about anywhere, anytime. Read below for some ideas to make writing, responding, and organizing your thoughts part of your daily routine:   

• Read and write frequently.  Read as much as you can from a variety of sources, including plays, essays, fiction, poetry, news stories, business writing, and magazine features. 
• Become familiar with current issues in society and develop your own opinions.  Think of arguments you would use to convince someone of your perspective. Taking speech and debate classes can help you think through issues and communicate them to others. 
• Practice writing in different formats and in as many real situations as possible.  Write letters to the editor, or letters to a company requesting information. 
• Try some writing in extracurricular activities.  School newspapers, yearbooks, and creative writing clubs offer opportunities to express ideas in writing. 
• Share your writing with others and get feedback.  Feedback helps you anticipate how readers might interpret your writing and what types of questions they might have. This can help you anticipate what a reader might want to know. 
• Learn to see writing as a process —brainstorming, planning, writing, and then editing. This applies to all writing activities. 
• Listen to the advice your English teacher gives you about your writing. 
• Strive for well-developed and well-organized writing  that uses precise, clear, and concise language. 
• Remember that everyone can improve their writing skills.  Confidence and skill will grow with the more writing you do. Practice and work lead to achievement. 

Tips for Taking the ACT Writing Test

Pace yourself.

The ACT writing test contains one question to be completed in 40 minutes. When asked to write a timed essay, most writers find it useful to do some planning before they write the essay and to do a final check of the essay when it is finished. It is unlikely that you will have time to draft, revise, and recopy your essay.

Before writing, carefully read and consider all prompt material. Be sure you understand the issue, its perspectives, and your essay task. The prewriting questions included with the prompt will help you analyze the perspectives and develop your own. Use these questions to think critically about the prompt and generate effective ideas in response. Ask yourself how your ideas and analysis can best be supported and organized in a written argument. Use the prewriting space in your test booklet to structure or outline your response.

Establish the focus of your essay by making clear your argument and its main ideas. Explain and illustrate your ideas with sound reasoning and meaningful examples. Discuss the significance of your ideas: what are the implications of what you have to say, and why is your argument important to consider? As you write, ask yourself if your logic is clear, you have supported your claims, and you have chosen precise words to communicate your ideas.

Review Your Essay

Take a few minutes before time is called to read over your essay. Correct any mistakes. If you find any words that are hard to read, recopy them. Make corrections and revisions neatly between the lines. Do not write in the margins. Your readers know you had only 40 minutes to compose and write your essay. Within that time limit, try to make your essay as polished as you can.

There are many ways to prepare for the ACT writing test. These include reading newspapers and magazines, listening to news analyses on television and radio, and participating in discussions and debates.

One of the best ways to prepare for the ACT writing test is to practice writing with different purposes for different audiences. The writing you do in your classes will help you. So will writing essays, stories, editorials, a personal journal, or other writing you do on your own.

It is also a good idea to practice writing within a time limit. Taking the practice ACT writing test will give you a sense of how much additional practice you may need. You might want to take the practice ACT writing test even if you do not plan to take the ACT with writing, because this will help build skills that are important in college-level learning and in the world of work.

Find more info about how the writing test is scored .

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Is ACT Writing Important? Expert Guide

ACT Writing

The Writing portion of the ACT has always been an optional portion of the exam. However, it was significantly revised in fall 2015 with the aim of better testing the kinds of analytical writing skills that are necessary for college work. Some colleges require or recommend that students take it for their application, and others don't.

With the recent revision of the SAT , the SAT Essay portion has also become optional. In light of this change, many colleges are changing their admissions policies and no longer requiring or recommending the SAT Essay or the ACT Writing section. But what does this whirlwind of change mean for you? Is the optional ACT Writing section still important?

In this article I'll break it down. First I'll give a brief of overview of the ACT writing section and how it's scored, which colleges require ACT Plus Writing, why schools require the Writing section and how they use it, and why other schools won't require the Writing section going forward. Finally I'll provide guidance on how to figure out if the ACT Writing section is important for you.

ACT Writing: a Brief Overview

On the ACT Writing section, you'll be presented with an issue and then three perspectives on that issue. You then have 40 minutes to write a unified essay that addresses the following two tasks:

#1: Present and support your own opinion on the issue

#2: Explain how your opinion and at least one other perspective is related.

The scoring system for the resulting essay is fairly complex. Two graders score your essay in 4 domains from 1-6, giving you a total potential score of 12 in each domain. Your scores between the four domains are then averaged to get your overall score from 2-12. For more on ACT Writing scoring, see our complete breakdown .

It's important to note that your score on the Writing section does not affect your composite score. However, it is a part of your English-Language Arts subscore, for which your English, Reading, and Writing scores (scaled to a 1-36 score range to calculate the ELA score) are averaged and rounded to the nearest whole number.

The Writing section will also cost you an extra $16-17.

It's a little-known fact that the first step in grading your ACT essay is solving an elaborate maze.

Who Requires ACT Plus Writing?

Most (over two-thirds) of colleges do not require the ACT Writing section . However, there are quite few institutions that continue to require it for applicants, especially among elite-tier schools (including UC Berkeley and UCLA).

For the most up-to-date information on a school's position on the ACT plus Writing , check a school's admissions website.

Those schools that do require Writing have gone on the record with specific reasons for doing so. I'll break those down in the next section.

Why Do Schools Require the ACT Plus Writing?

You may be curious about why some schools require the Writing section of the ACT in light of the fact that so many schools have made it completely optional. Based on public statements from school officials, there seem to be three main reasons why schools require the ACT's optional Writing section:

Consistency

Many schools feel that the revised SAT essay is much better at testing the kinds of analytical skills important for college writing. For those schools that feel the SAT essay is worthwhile, it makes sense for them to also require the ACT's Writing section for the sake of consistency.

More Information Is Better

Some college admissions offices have the philosophy that all of the information they can get is useful in evaluating applicants. The Writing section provides another data point on a student's language and writing skills in addition to transcripts and admissions essays. Thus, schools that value having all the information that it is conceivably possible to obtain about a student tend to require ACT Writing.

See Your Writing Skills Under Pressure

The ACT Writing section gives admissions officers a unique chance to see how you use your analytical writing skills under time pressure. Your college admissions essays are polished and tightly edited pieces of writing, while your ACT Writing efforts will be much more raw and unvarnished. Again, it's another data point for schools.

The infamous Tower of Time Pressure.

These reasons provide some insight as to why schools require ACT Writing—but how do they use your scores?

How Do Schools Use ACT Plus Writing?

If you are applying to schools that require ACT Writing, it's important to know how they use it in evaluating your application. Is it a critical piece, a bit of extra fluff, or something in between?

I spoke on the phone to admissions officers at different schools about how they use the ACT's Writing section. Some themes emerged:

• Admissions officers feel that the ACT Plus Writing gives a more "rounded" picture of an applicant's skills than the ACT without Writing. Essentially, they value having the additional information about an applicant's language skills as part of their standardized test scores.
• However, they also stress that students are evaluated holistically, and their primary concern would be if a student's essay score seemed inconsistent with the student's other writing-based application materials. For example, if your application essay was phenomenal and you got straight-As in your English classes but then a overall score of 5/12 on the essay, that would be a red flag that something bizarre was going on.

The general consensus is that schools do really look at the score, but it's not a super-important part of the application unless the score seems inconsistent with an applicant's other qualifications. However, your best bet if you are interested in a given school that requires the Writing section and you want to know exactly how they use it to evaluate applicants is to call the admissions office and ask.

It's also worth (re)stating that except for in the most selective tier of institutions, schools that require the ACT Writing section are in the minority. Most schools won't require or even recommend the new optional essay, and they have their own reasons for doing so.

UC Berkeley does require the ACT plus Writing.

Why Don't Schools Require the ACT Plus Writing?

There are three main reasons that schools have given for not requiring the ACT Writing section going forward:

When the essay portion of the SAT was required, it made sense for schools to require the optional Writing section of the ACT for consistencies' sake. Now that the SAT essay is optional, however, schools can re-evaluate their stance on the issue. Schools that have decided to not require the optional SAT essay have, in general, also removed their ACT Writing requirement to preserve consistency in testing guidelines between the two tests."

The Writing Section Is Redundant

Some schools feel that they already have sufficient evidence of an applicant's writing capability through application essays and student transcripts in English. This is particularly true at institutions where multiple essays are required as part of the application.

Requiring the ACT Writing Is a Burden to Underprivileged Students

Some schools are concerned that the extra cost associated with the Writing section may be a deterrent to underprivileged students. University of Pennsylvania has stated that minority and first-generation college applicants are least likely to have a "complete testing profile." They've eliminated the ACT Writing requirement in the hopes of attracting a more diverse applicant pool.

A diverse applicant pool as represented by these decorative squashes.

Is the ACT Writing Section Important for You?

I've gone over how and why schools will require or not require the ACT Writing section going forward. But how does this affect you?

Should I Take the ACT Plus Writing?

This comes down primarily to whether or not you are applying to schools that require or recommend the ACT Writing Section. (I generally err on the side of treating recommendations as nicely-worded requirements in the college application process.)

If you don't take the ACT Writing section and later realize you need it, you will unfortunately have to retake the entire exam! So if there is even a chance you might be interested in a school that does require/recommend the Writing section, you should take it. This is especially salient if you are applying to top-tier schools, as some many require or recommend the ACT Writing section.

If you know for certain that you are definitively not interested in a single school that requires or recommends the Writing section, go ahead and skip it. But only if you know you won't change your mind!

Another note here is that if you are very good at timed analytical essay-writing, you might also want to take the Writing section even if you are only applying to schools where it is optional. A stellar score will look good on your application even if it's not required—in fact, it will show that you took some initiative.

How Important Is My Score?

The answer to this question is not completely clear-cut, as it does depend on the schools to which you are applying. What's most important in general is that your Writing score is consistent with your other test scores. It certainly doesn't have to be a perfect correlation—if you get a 36 for your composite and a 9/12 on writing, I wouldn't stress too much. But if you have a 30 composite and an 6/12 on the essay, that may cause concern among admissions officers that you aren't ready for college-level writing.

How Can I Succeed on the ACT Writing Section?

If you do need to take the Writing section, you can definitely learn the skills necessary to do well. Here are some general tips:

• Take a few minutes to plan out your essay before you start writing it!
• Be sure to discuss at least two of the perspectives in your essay, and definitely make your own opinion clear.
• Support all of the points you make with specific examples.
• Make sure your essay is logically organized and has an introduction and a conclusion.
• Write more than a page!

For more on how to hit ACT Writing out of the park, see our step- by-step guide to writing an ACT essay , 15 tips to raise your essay score , or our guide to a perfect essay score .

These kittens are proud of you!

Key Takeaways

Because the SAT has made the essay section of the exam optional, schools are taking the time to reevaluate their requirements for the ACT Writing section as well. Many schools have dropped the requirement entirely. However, elite-tier institutions are divided on the issue, with some continuing to require the Writing section and others dropping it.

For those schools that do require the Writing section, it may not be clear exactly how they use it in evaluating your application. The general consensus among admissions officers I spoke to was that the Writing score provided valuable information, but that it was mostly used to check for consistency in an applicant's language skills.

In evaluating whether the ACT Writing section is important for you, consider the following:

• Are you applying to schools that consider, recommend, or require the ACT Writing section? Then take the ACT Plus Writing.
• Are you not sure where you're applying yet? Take the ACT Plus Writing, because otherwise if you end up needing it later you will have to sit for the whole exam again.

If you are taking the Writing section, how important is your score? Well, it's most important that your score is generally consistent with the rest of your test scores and application profile. But the good news is that it's very possible to learn how to write an excellent ACT essay.

My final word, then, would be don't ignore the Writing section and definitely prepare for it if you're going to take it, but don't stress too much about getting a perfect score.

Nothing is truly perfect...except this puppy.

What's Next?

Wondering about the SAT essay? See our expert guide on the importance of the SAT essay.

If you're not sure how important the ACT is for college admissions, see our guide.

Prepping for the ACT? See our collection of free ACT practice tests , our comprehensive list of ACT guides , and our total guide to ACT test day .

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Ellen has extensive education mentorship experience and is deeply committed to helping students succeed in all areas of life. She received a BA from Harvard in Folklore and Mythology and is currently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University.

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