Illinois switching from ACT, will give students SAT instead

The state of Illinois will stop giving the ACT college entrance exam and instead has contracted to give high school juniors the rival SAT, according to state records.

The company that offers the ACT has filed a protest with the state seeking to cancel Illinois' new contract with the College Board, which offers the SAT. The three-year contract is worth $14.3 million, state records show. Illinois has given the ACT for free to 11th graders for 15 years.

A new law took effect in Illinois this past summer requiring a college entrance exam be included in the state testing cycle. The state's ACT contract ended by that time and the state launched a competitive process for a new contract, which state records show the SAT won with a proposal that was $1.37 million less than the ACT over three years.

The College Board said in a statement that more Illinois students would benefit from taking the SAT. In response to the SAT contract, the ACT filed a protest on Dec. 15 with state procurement officials. Those officials say several outcomes of the protest are possible, including the state restarting the competitive process.

ACT spokesman Ed Colby said the company is "analyzing the submitted proposals and working within the process dictated by procurement requirements."

Meanwhile a state budget impasse in Illinois means there is no budget for statewide college testing. That led to dozens of districts earlier this school year signing up for ACT testing, some at their own cost. The College Board also has been working with some Illinois school districts that would like to give the SAT this spring. That means schools across Illinois could be offering the SAT, the ACT or both.

The graduating class of 2015 in Illinois had 157,047 students from public and private high school take the ACT. That's compared with fewer than 6,000 students who graduated high school in 2015 in Illinois who took the SAT.

Mckendree University vice president for admission and financial aid Chris Hall said he believes the change in the test will have no impact on the Lebanon-based private university.

“It’s been a long time that the ACT has been the dominant test in Illinois, so I am a little surprised to see that change,” Hall said. “But we’ve always utilized either one of them, so it doesn’t make any difference as far as we're concerned.”

While Hall said most Midwestern states favor the ACT, most East Coast states use the SAT.

“We’re seeing more applications in recent years from the East Coast,” Hall said. “I’d say that about one-quarter of our applicants these days already submit the SAT exclusively.”

Hall said the most important thing to McKendree is the student’s high school transcript. Some schools weight the high school record so much that they have made the college entrance exams optional. But Hall said McKendree doesn’t plan to take things that far.

“More and more (high schools) have stopped ranking their student body,” according to Hall. “So it’s difficult to determine, if you’re not familiar with the school, how tough it is and what programs it has to offer beyond the basics. So, we’re going to continue to require one of the tests. But we’re not going to tell students which one to take.”

For high schools, the switch could mean quick changes. Since 2001, the ACT was part of the high school Prairie State Achievement Test, and thus was free for all students - and used as a benchmark for tracking high schoolers’ achievement, according to Madison County Regional Superintendent Bob Daiber.

But when the new PARCC test premiered, the ACT was no longer offered for free - or mandatory for all students. Some schools opted to cover the cost of ACT testing themselves, while others arranged for test days at students’ cost.

Many students are already signed up for ACT preparation classes and tests beginning in January, offered at some high schools, through private companies, or at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, whose office of educational outreach offers an ACT prep class that culminates in taking the test itself. The five-week, $175 class has three sessions scheduled in the spring semester alone.

But Todd Burrell, SIUE director of undergraduate admissions, said not much will change in the process of applying to college. He said most state institutions already accept either test, as students may apply from anywhere. “We just receive very few SAT scores because it’s not the dominant test here,” Burrell said.

While SIUE does not have a minimum requirement, Burrell said the middle 50 percent of SIUE freshment scored 20-25 on the ACT - which is the equivalent of 940 to 1160 on the SAT, and the school accepts either one. Academic scholarships require scores of 23 on the ACT or 1050 on the SAT and up, depending on the scholarship, he said.

Some of that may change, however: Burrell said the SAT has recently undergone a redesign, and students testing in March 2016 and onward will take the new test. That might change the baseline requirements, he said.

But in the end, it will affect the high school programs more than universities, Burrell said. “We already accept both, and that won’t change,” he said.

Melissa Taylor, Belleville District 201 director of special services, said they still are encouraging students to sign up for the nationwide ACT test days at their own cost.

“We know that SAT got the contract, but we also know that ACT is protesting, and until that protest is resolved we don’t know (what test it will be),” Taylor said. "We sent letters to parents of all of our juniors encouraging them to sign up for the national ACT testing days. Even if this contract gets resolved, we don’t know that Illinois will fund the test."

Other districts also are continuing as they have been, until they get more solid information.

“If the change is implemented, we will need to look at the time line and then make our determinations,” said Collinsville Unit 10 Superintendent Robert Green.

Granite City Superintendent Jim Greenwald said they also are taking a “wait and see” position. “I never like to put anybody in panic mode,” Greenwald said. “With the uncertainty of state funding for any testing, I would highly recommend students continue to (take the ACT)... We can’t really predict what’s going to happen.”

Daiber said each district chooses how it will handle college entrance testing itself, now that the ACT is no longer part of the mandatory state testing. He suggested that parents trying to help their children prepare look at the colleges the student is considering.

“Consult with the schools in which your child is considering enrolling,” Daiber said.

East coast colleges, for example, tend to look at the SAT, while midwestern colleges - including most Illinois colleges - look for the ACT. The most useful test will be the one that is native to that school’s area, he said.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Illinois switching from ACT, will give students SAT instead."