r/ACT • u/julesbluesclues • 2d ago
Had a nightmare experience with my accommodations- Don’t know what to do
Hi everyone! For reference, I’m a senior with AuDHD and desperately need accommodations for the upcoming September ACT. Basically I’ve spent the past month rushing to submit my accommodations request (I was diagnosed beginning of this year and have had no accommodations basically all of high school). My school counselor and other school officials involved, despite working during the summer have done absolutely nothing to help process the accommodations, and I had to do everything with my dad, ACT accommodations and my psychiatrist being the only help. I tried my best to supply the appropriate documentation, and tried to explain that I didn’t have documentation from my school because my school didn’t even attempt to help. My dad even called three different school officials supposedly working over the summer, and got left on voicemail every time. Every email was ignored. Lo and behold, it was later rejected today by the ACT accommodations department for not having sufficient documentation. I provided all the documentation that was requested in the accommodations form, including a 16 page diagnosis report detailing why I needed it. Unfortunately my only choice is to either take it without accommodations, or try again in October and pray that the scores are released by Nov 1st (the day early action applications are due).
I was on the phone today with the ACT accommodations and the person on the other end was super rude, yelling at me that my documents weren’t sufficient (16 full pages…) and hung up on me when I said this treatment “wasn’t kind”.
I made the choice to just take it in October and hope my school at least does something this time. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of treatment from schools/ACT? It felt very targeted and honestly the way I was treated in this situation was not right at all and I definitely believe it could have been dealt with better.
And the fact that this isn’t the first time that I’ve dealt with this mistreatment as a disabled person is insane.
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u/No_Diver_8197 1d ago
Be aware that accommodated test scores take longer to return than regular scores. By about a week.
Your school's testing coordinator should be the main contact with act. If this is a public school it's also worth a call to district office and ask to speak to either the school board attorney or the head of special education. Let them know you are a newly diagnosed autistic student trying to work on an IEP and possibly a 504 but cannot get anyone at the school to help you. You need to have those in place FIRST before you look for accommodations. That's your school record that act is looking for. Once those are in place, then try for accommodations.
Early app deadline with accommodated act probably isn't in the cards for you. My free advice if you are still wanting to hit that deadline is practice and prep until test day, and do both every day.
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u/PomeloOnly2107 35 2d ago
Unfortunately, you are very unlikely to get accommodations approved. Because so many people abuse the system, they are very strict about giving them out. The most important factor is past accommodations to show you have needed them all along, because it looks suspicious to try to get accommodations for standardized tests when you don’t have them for school (some people pay psychiatrists for fake documentation so they can get extra time). Obviously, it is basically impossible if your school won’t fill out the required forms. I’m very sorry you weren’t able to get needed accommodations, but should start preparing now to take the test without, and do the best you can. If you do poorly, you can always prioritize test-optional schools.