Higher ed disruption dominos now falling on high school seniors
The April ACT test date has been postponed until June due to the coronavirus outbreak.
It is just the latest disruption to academia as the nation deals with a global pandemic.
As the class of 2020 adjusts to their courses moving online for the rest of the spring semester and anxiously awaits whether their graduation ceremonies will occur as planned, a new class- the class of 2024, is facing a whole new challenge.
For graduating high school seniors seeking to take the ACT examination one last time, or possibly to even take it for their first and only time, they will have to wait an additional two months before sitting for the college admissions test. In a move that could potentially delay colleges’ admissions decisions for some students by months, or even eliminate some students’ ability to get into the colleges of their choice, ACT announced recently that it will postpone its April 4 nationwide testing date to June 13 as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
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”ACT has rescheduled the April 4, 2020 national ACT test date to June 13, 2020 in response to concerns regarding the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). ACT will communicate directly with all students currently registered for the April 4, 2020 ACT test. All students registered for the April 4 test date will receive an email from ACT in the next few days informing them of the postponement and instructions for next steps,” an announcement from ACT stated.
In addition to possibly delaying some students learning whether they have been accepted to colleges, the move could also eliminate students’ chances of being admitted to the colleges of their choice. That would happen if the student has not yet taken the ACT but has applied to colleges with fall 2020 application deadlines before June 13.
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“ACT is committed to making every effort to help those students impacted by this test date change, particularly those high school seniors who are facing deadlines for fall 2020 college admission,” ACT CEO Marten Roorda said in response to that specific challenge.
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