By Jules Harley

Springfield students who did not get to take the free ACT at their home high school this April are still in luck, according to Robin Collins, an assistant principal at Hillcrest High School.

“The ACT will be done in the fall and the school will pay for it,” Collins said.

There are ACT test dates this June and July if students do not mind paying for it themselves. But if they wait until the fall, the Springfield school district will cover the cost.

Nicholette Steck, a junior in Middle College, said Covid-19 has made her home life and school life harder.

“Covid-19 has affected my home life because my family isn’t used to being inside as much as we are now,” Steck said.

Online classes for the high school side of things are not that hard, Steck said, but as for some of the college classes, they are a bit harder because there are no more lectures to help with the work that students are asked to do.

“Doing online classes at home with no quiet space to do them makes it that much harder to focus and try and get things done,” Steck said.

As for the social distancing, Steck said it is not the most fun because there can’t be any family gatherings or friend hangouts so that is no fun for a lot of people but they will get through it.

“I think this will affect me going into my senior year because I didn’t get the chance to learn everything that I could’ve learned at school,” Steck said. “So I think everyone going into the next grade will have a little bit of a harder time.”

Many colleges are making plans to revise next year’s admissions process, according to Shari Fieser, the assistant director of campus events and visits at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. Fieser said the requirement to submit an ACT score might be dropped by her college.

“For students that were unable to take the ACT or unable to do retakes, we are still reviewing their applications for admissions and would be admitting these students on a conditional basis,” Fieser said.

Truman State is a somewhat smaller school than others, Fieser said, so its admission office reads through each application and goes on a case-by-case basis. They look at more than just the GPA or the ACT, Fieser said—they look at your overall grades.

“Continue to take those tests, but if it doesn’t work out then we have enough information to have confidence that you can be successful at Truman and we would be open to some of these policies for next year students,” Fieser said.

ACT, COVID-19, Jules Harvey, Juniors, Nicholette Steck