Switching from ACT Legacy to Enhanced Scores

Beginning in September 2025, the ACT has made the Science Test optional. As a result, Composite and Super Scores no longer includes the Science section and are instead the average of the English, math, and reading sections. 

Many students graduating in 2026 will have taken the ACT both before and after the score change. To help you standardize their scores across the change, and to allow you to select which score type to show for all of your students, we have added the ability for you to select the ACT score type to display for each of your students. We have also added logging of score types used by student in your College Admissions and Scholarships reports.

To keep things consistent for you, we are still displaying the Legacy Scores in CollegePlannerPro and CustomCollegePlan. This means that if you have not updated your settings, the Science Section is included in Composite and Super Scores for all of your active students. 

To switch an active student's ACT calculation type, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the student's profile
2. Click on "Account settings" located in the section below the student's name.
   
3. A new dialog window will open, in the top section "Account settings", toggle the option for "Use the Legacy ACT Composite and Super Scores (Science scores included)"
   

4. You will see that the ACT Super Score and the individual ACT Composite Scores will now show the Enhanced Score calculations. The STEM scores will still include science. 
   
   If this does not occur right away, you may need to refresh your browser to see the update. 
   
   Note that if the user manually entered a Composite score, that score will not be altered when the score type is updated. Likewise, we do not show Composite or Super Scores for either practice or Pre ACT test fields.

    

To switch the default calculation for new student's ACT calculation type, follow these steps:

1. Go to Your Account Settings.
   
2. In the left sidebar, select the tab for "Student & Parent Settings"
   
3. In the setting menu, toggle the option for "By default use the Legacy ACT scores (Science included)." Please note that changing a setting in your user profile will NOT change that setting for your active students; it will only change the default for new students added to your account. 
   
   
   
    

Other Things to Note

• We defaulted to the Legacy scores to ensure that all of your legacy students will not have their data accidentally updated to a scoring method that was not available to them. You will probably want to switch the default in your account settings for either this year or next year's rising seniors.
• Our ACT medians and ranges are based on the data from the previous admissions cycle. The 2024-2025 CDS data uses the Legacy ACT scoring method. When a student's ACT scoring method is set to Enhanced, you will see a new legend in College Profiles for that student reminding you that the scoring methods may differ.

• We have added a new column to the Application Requirements Report and the Received Scholarships Report. This column will automatically be added to any report where "Student ACT & SAT scores" is selected in the report. It will note for each student whether their ACT calculation was done using the Legacy or the Enhanced scoring method.