by Catherine Tierney
It has been a tumultuous year for the ACT writing. After changing the prompt, rubric, and scoring scale twice, the ACT has announced one (hopefully) final change: no more hand scoring.
Previously, students unhappy with their writing score could pay a $50 fee to have the essay “hand scored” (in reality, the essays are always graded by hand!) by an additional grader. The score given by this grader replaced the score on the student’s score report. Last year, more students than ever used the hand scoring option, and it is not hard to see why: it almost always resulted in a higher score, and sometimes a significantly higher score (think a 19 to a 30). This may have been good news for the student, but it was deleterious for the ACT. These inconsistencies in grading were heavily scrutinized and taken as evidence that the ACT essay was no longer a reliable measure of, well, anything. Not to mention, this practice heavily favored upper income families for whom the $50 fee was not burdensome.
After a year of changes, it seems that the new ACT writing has finally achieved some stability. By discontinuing hand scoring and reverting back to the familiar 12 point scale, the ACT is ameliorating what had become known as a damaged product. The class of 2017 received essentially a “free pass” on the ACT essay; though a number of competitive schools are requiring the essay for admissions, it is unlikely that they really know what to do with it this year. At best, colleges are using it as a baseline by which to evaluate future classes– especially the class of 2018.
