How to Delete ACT Scores

A little known fact about the ACT is that you can delete your score after you’ve received your scores. It’s not terribly easy, nor is it easy to even find instructions on how to do so, but it is possible.

But Why Delete Your Scores?

Why might you want to delete your ACT scores? After all, don’t most schools only consider your highest score and/or superscore? To be honest, it’s hard to know exactly how your scores will be treated, not only from institution to institution, but even between different institution readers. Will one reader look more optimistically on multiple sittings while another one sees it as more of a weakness? Will both readers see it the same, but view your lowest sitting score differently? It’s hard to know, and you likely won’t be able to get any clear answers simply because the readers, despite having training to read applications in particular ways, may still be bringing in their own biases without even realizing it. Perhaps shaded by their years of experience with reading applications, their own belief systems about perseverence and grit, or from their own experiences applying to college.

If I were to make this decision for myself, it would certainly depend on how much my lowest score differed from my best scores. If there was a very large discrepancy (3 points? 7 points?), I would be much more likely to delete the lower score. I would also likely want to take a deep dive into the particular data sets (referred to as the Common Data Set) of what schools choose to publish and/or consult with my college counselor, at least for my particular dream schools. And I would never, ever delete a score before I had better scores in hand. Just in case! Over the years, I’ve seen too many students unable to take a last ACT or SAT because of unlucky breaks - literally with a broken wrist, and figuratively in the manner of canceled tests, contagious diseases, or parking or travel situations.

How to Cancel the Scores

So let’s say we’ve made it through these considerations and we still want to delete our ACT score from the past. How do we do it?

The first thing to note is that ACT does not refer to deleting scores as “deleting” scores - they refer to it as “canceling” scores. The information on how to do this is located on their website here: https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/scores.html. Under the section called “Can Scores Be Cancelled?”, the first paragraph indicates that the ACT can cancel your scores for any reason, and the second paragraph indicates how you can go about canceling your own scores if you want to (excluding state or district mandated testing, which we are not facing in San Diego / California).

The text reads that you will have to cancel the scores by requesting so online at this form: https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/the-act-test-contact-us.html. They will mail you a form to fill out and return to them, and once they have received the request, they will delete/cancel the score permanently and send cancellation notices to any score recipients. This is particularly convenient if you have not actually sent scores to any institutions yet.

Considerations

This cancelation/deletion process takes time! They have to first respond with a form for you to fill out and then have to mail in. It then has to be received and processed. This should not be done during the crush of application submission season, but beforehand. However, if your best score comes in the fall of your senior year and you haven’t submitted scores yet to any institutions, of course you can still do so then. (You can still do so after the scores have been submitted too, but I wonder what the point of it would be at this stage).

One thing I really appreciate about the ACT organization is that they believe that you own your data. Yes, they profit from your data, but you ultimately can delete data if you want to. The Collegeboard does not believe this and does not allow you to delete your scores unless it’s within a 3 day window after you’ve taken the test (and before you’ve seen your scores). The SAT is also a bit more difficult to determine how you did on the test based on how you felt about the test, so you’re more likely to want to wait to see the scores, and then once you have, you can’t do anything about them.

Side note: I remember years ago that there was a student who canceled her SAT Subject Test scores after she took them because she knew she didn’t perform to the best of her abilities. Unfortunately, though Collegeboard said they canceled them, the scores were still reported to them. It took many phone calls from the parent for the situation to be rectified. I forget what piece of evidence she used that ultimately proved her case, but it was quite a lot of effort. I have never heard of a student running into this problem with the ACT.

Further Questions?

Please let us know. We’d be happy to help you navigate this process if it’s something you think you’d like to do.