For the first time, Manhattan High signed up all juniors for the ACT, which students could opt out of, rather than opt into as in previous years. The test was administered last Tuesday in two different locations – Hilton Garden Inn and West Campus – to accommodate the 410 out of 467 juniors scheduled. 

“We had such a huge population of testers because it was an opt-out type of test,” said Shannon Molt, District Testing Coordinator. “That’s why we had to do two separate locations. Trying to find that many locations within the building, especially on a non-block day, is really difficult and so we needed two large ones.”

Since 2018, the ACT has been offered to Kansas high school juniors for free, making 2022 the fourth free testing year. Manhattan High chose to not include the writing portion of the test to students this year. 

“The state of Kansas offers the ACT test free for one time for each junior,” Molt said. “If for some reason a junior doesn’t take it, then they can actually take it their senior year if they don’t use it during their junior year and that free test allows them to send their score report to four colleges for free.”

With roughly 88% of the junior class scheduled to take the ACT, two locations helped MHS accommodate hundreds of students. However, two testing sites provide challenges, including busing, start times and end times.

“Having different locations is hard because [of] timing,” Molt said. “You can’t really predict exactly what it’s going to be like, but we worked with what we had. [There were] some restrictions on when we could leave for the buses and restrictions on when we need to be back for lunch, and that’s always challenging.”

According to Molt, discussions on whether to continue to have an opt-out ACT exam or utilize different testing locations will occur over the summer. Juniors should expect to see their scores back within a couple of weeks. Make-up testing for students who were absent is on Tuesday, March 29.

“One test day and one test score does not define their success,” Molt said. “If they don’t feel like it’s a good reflection of them, then they can take [it] again and again. [The ACT] doesn’t define how successful they can be in the future.”