Table of Contents
If your teen might want to take the ACT®, they should sign up early to save a seat — often all seats book up months in advance (especially in states like New Jersey, California, etc).
What to do if the test centers are fully booked
The vast majority of students (99% — everyone except those applying to a military academy) should not take the ACT essay. There is no reason to do so. When the SAT discontinued its essay in January of 2021, essentially all colleges stopped caring about an ACT essay score as well.
And yet, there are still separate rooms for students taking the ACT without the essay and for students taking the ACT with the essay.
That separation of seats and availability gives students an opportunity.
For instance, here was the availability for students taking the July ACT without the essay in New Jersey.
But there was a helpful workaround: there are often many more seats still available when registering to take the essay, so students can register for the ACT with the essay and then just not take the essay.
Here was the comparative availability for the July ACT with the essay in New Jersey.
How to register for but not take the ACT essay
I confirmed this process with the ACT for how to register for the ACT with the essay but then not take the essay:
- Register for the ACT with the essay.
- On test day, when you enter your assigned classroom, inform the proctor that you no longer wish to take the ACT with the essay and ask that you be allowed to leave the room after the experimental section (the 20-minute fifth section at the end of the test that doesn’t count) before the essay starts.
- In every instance, my students have been allowed to leave before the essay begins. But, technically it is up to the proctor’s discretion whether they will let the student leave or not.
- If the proctor does not allow you to leave before the essay starts, then do not break the seal on the essay booklet. As long as you don’t break the seal (and just take a nap, do silent meditation, or contemplate gratitude for existence and blessings, etc for the duration of the 40-minute essay), then you will not receive an essay score, and your ACT test will be scored just the same as if you had never registered for the essay.
- One last option (not confirmed by the ACT as an official practice but which sometimes works) is to ask when you arrive at the school check-in desk if you can be switched to a non-essay room. Then you, and everyone, will be done with the test after the fifth experimental section.
So, worst case scenario: you will experience the long suffering of 40-minutes of potential boredom. But, for most students, that worst case scenario is still much better than having to get up earlier to drive 40 minutes further to take the test because all the test centers near them are fully booked for taking the ACT without the essay.
Paper or Computer Test?
Very important: do NOT register to take the ACT via computer. The full explanation would take a separate post, but suffice to say that the ACT is designed as a paper test and does not translate well to a digital format (instead of having the graphs and tables on the page in front of them, students have to scroll up and down on the screen looking for answers, etc — in short, students are likely to get lower scores when taking the digital format).
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us anytime or contact the ACT directly.
SAT® and ACT® are registered trademarks belonging, respectively, to Collegeboard and ACT, Inc. Neither Collegeboard nor ACT, Inc. is involved with or affiliated with Summit Prep, nor does the SAT or ACT, Inc. endorse or sponsor any of the products or services offered by Summit Prep.
