Parents often talk about how the ACT wasn’t as big of a deal back when they were applying to college and how they barely even remember their scores. Us kids wish that were still the case. The test is now a huge form of anxiety that does not correlate with anything, is linked to each stress disorder, and causes a regret for the time spent or a development of learned self-helplessness through failure. Clearly, focus in admissions should be placed on a student's personality, self-efficacy, and drive.

We all know the specific reason why the ACT was invented-- to level the GPA playing field since high schools across the nation are so different. And sure, this makes sense and all. But does the ACT really correlate with anything at all? First and foremost, it’s one test, not a full school year of classes. More importantly, the ACT has no correlation with how well you are going to do in school, if you are going to graduate, drop out, whether or not you are going to get married, divorced, develop an addiction, and or die young, so why do we take it? In fact, I believe schools would be better off judging students on their personalities and values, their self efficacy. This is strength in one’s own belief in their ability to complete a task. It must be how things were done before the ACT carried so much weight. Everyone gets so worked up over the ACT being the pathway to the dream college that even parents stress their children out nowadays, most times not meaning to, and a lot of times over needed scholarship opportunities, too. But America needs to wake up, because it’s just plain unhealthy.

First and foremost, the ACT encourages perfection and every disorder. Society is alienating it’s young stuffing this test down their throats, preparing them for standardized testing when it should be teaching them how to interact and other important things like teamwork. Society says it’s trying to help “cure” these disorders (as if they’re the plague or there is a cure), and is trying time after time to stop bullying, as if bullying is the culprit of all depression, anxiety, OCD, chronic headaches, GI problems, and eating disorders. That’s not to say that bullying might not contribute, or that the ACT is the cause of all of these issues, but we should spend more time focusing on the impact that the stress from the ACT is having. For instance, the media tells us to have a perfect body type, be a perfect person, our culture, teachers, colleges, and friends to attain 4.0 averages, and then our parents mainly strive to tell us the opposite. Hopefully a good parent has told their kid there’s no magic number or pill for anything; do your best and that’s all you can do.

Then colleges present to us the magic ACT number to get us into our dreams.This confuses us. We overstudy for the test because we can’t deal with not knowing what our score results will lead to, and it breeds a fear of the unknown. People with OCD/ anxiety can’t handle the unknown. This anxiety spreads into school grades in general. Even more obvious, people struggling with eating disorders need a number to say they’re of good value and perfect body weight, beauty. If there’s a perfect ACT number, we’re teaching our youth there are perfect body weights, sizes, and measurements. Moreover, people with chronic pain are most likely suffering because of chronic stress, and it is inarguable that the ACT is a huge stressor for most kids. Finally, depression comes from learned self-helplessness. This is when we learn that we can’t help ourselves and are vulnerable to defeat and let negative self-talk take over.

How does the ACT promote learned self-helplessness? After the ACT, if someone put all their effort into it and didn’t get a good score out of it, they’ll experience learned self-helplessness. Self efficacy may come if they do beat the test. But what next? How is this even helpful to them? Wouldn’t it be better if they had spent their time and energy doing something actually necessary to their existence as a human being on this planet to better this world? They might even feel that way themselves and feel like all the time they spent over studying or studying in general was a waste.

Finally, I think it is important to note those rare people who don’t put any effort into the test other than on test taking day and do receive an exceptional score. These are the lucky ones in society today, the outliers whose smarts fit the ACT. We all know someone like that. The thing is, for most of us it’s a super stressful process and it still doesn’t predict how well this student will do in college, because the college has no way of knowing how hard working this student is. In fact, they may not have done anything to prepare for the test at all. Brains are not everything.

You can argue all you want over the ACT, but one thing is clear, too much weight is put on one silly test, one silly test with serious consequences; in fact the test does not correlate with anything, breeds every symptomatic disorder, and leaves test takers either feeling like they could’ve spent their time more wisely or with a serious case of learned self-helplessness. Therefore, college's should put more and more weight on students’ personalities, self efficacy, and motivation. How can you help? Defy society and say not to stressing over the ACT.