Out of over 1.9 million students in the 2018 ACT-tested graduating class, 44% took the full ACT® test at least twice in hopes of improving their scores. Camara and Allen (2017) support this practice, confirming that factors such as time in the classroom between test administrations are associated with increases in ACT Composite scores from the…

Social and emotional (SE) skills are known to be linked with many important life outcomes, including academic performance, performance on standardized college entrance exams, and college enrollment, although research on enrollment is limited. In this report, the authors present data points from a study that evaluated test-criterion validity…

A quasi-experimental method and test-retest design were used to explore the impact of participating in test preparation, whether the impact of test preparation depends on the first ACT® score, and the impact of specific test preparation activities. Test preparation improved students' retest scores and this effect did not differ depending on…

A majority of high school graduates aspire to earn a college degree (ACT, 2016), yet many students are graduating from high school unprepared to do college-level work. As a result, about one-third of college freshmen enroll in at least one developmental course upon entry to college (Skomsvold, 2014). Because developmental courses are often not…

The ACT College Readiness Benchmarks are the ACT scores associated with a 50% chance of earning a B or higher grade in selected first-year credit-bearing courses at a typical postsecondary institution. The Benchmarks were established by linking ACT test scores with grades in first-year college courses from the same subject area. Benchmarks were…

Recent research suggests that the use of student search services is an effective part of a college's student marketing and recruitment strategy. What is not clear, however, is whether participating in a search service is an effective part of a student's college search strategy. To address this question, we exploit a recent change in the choice…

Although about 40% of high school graduates who take the ACT® test express interest in pursuing a career in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field, the percentage of first-year students in college who declare a STEM major is substantially lower. The pool of prospective STEM workers shrinks further as the majority of STEM…

We examined the validity of using Compass® test scores and high school grade point average (GPA) for placing students in first-year college courses and for identifying students at risk of not succeeding. Consistent with other research, the combination of high school GPA and Compass scores performed better than either measure used alone. Results…

There is a growing view that students who enroll in developmental courses are less successful in completing their programs than non-developmental students. Nevertheless, even though developmental students as a group ultimately might not be as academically successful as non-developmental students, many of them might still derive benefit from taking…

Ample correlational evidence indicates that high school GPA is usually better than admission test scores in predicting first-year college GPA, although test scores have incremental predictive validity. Many people conclude that this correlational evidence translates directly to usefulness in making admission decisions. The issue of usefulness is…

This study examines the differential effects on student subgroups of using the ACT® College Readiness Assessment Composite (ACTC) score and high school grade point average (HSGPA) for making admission decisions. The subgroup characteristics investigated include race/ethnicity, gender, and income. For each student subgroup, we examine the effect of…

The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP) is designed to provide assistance to low income students. The program provides discretionary grants for the purpose of increasing the readiness of low income students to attend and succeed in postsecondary education. The grants are up to six years in length and provide…