Three Socially Reprehensible Ways to Acquire an Edge on the ACT
What follows are my musings on three subjects: standardized test prep courses, extended time allotments for tests, and stimulant usage. These three topics affect grades and standardized test scores which are the two most important factors for college admission. Getting into top colleges is a matter of great importance for many families so any potential edge should be exploited.
The ACT, that most dreaded of standardized tests. Few letters can strike such fear into the hearts of young people. It can mean a life of privilege and great accomplishment if one scores well enough to merit entry into top ranked universities. The chance to escape your squalid and inbred hometown to go live somewhere magical.
Simply fill in all of those 215 bubbles correctly and you can float away to any college in the world while being awarded hundreds of thousands in scholarships. Fail to do well and you will get into a third-rate school and may be paying off student loans until you are 60. Whether or not wealth and prestige are important to a happy and fulfilling life is a topic for another article but if you think they are you owe it to yourself to take this test seriously.
You may not think standardized tests are “fair” or are an “accurate judge of intelligence”. But the problem of sorting 3.7 million graduating seniors in an objective way is immense. GPA comparisons across high schools are unfair, individual interviews are unwieldy, and extra curriculars are stacked by wealthy helicopter parents. If you know of a better way to objectively compare the intelligence of millions of people than giving the same test everyone let me know. We have a massive industry to disrupt. All of this is irrelevant anyway, you have to succeed in the game you are in before you can change it.
Wealthy parents spend thousands of dollars on prep courses because they know it to be a good investment. I scored a 27 on the ACT without a prep course but after taking a $5,000 12-week prep course I scored a 31. This is the difference between the 87th percentile and the 97% for scores in 2013. I went from being the smartest kid in a room of 8 to the smartest in a room of 33. This sum of $5000 was immediately worth many multiples of itself due to the larger scholarships I received.
These expensive prep courses primarily consist of sitting with a tutor and going over example questions in a prep book. The tutor is there mostly to keep you focused and on task at regular intervals. A disciplined student can get the full value of an expensive prep course by simply buying a few prep books and working through them. The concentration required to do this is immense but paying thousands for a class is not necessary.
In high school a dear friend told me that due to his ADHD diagnosis he was able to receive extended time on the test. For the ACT 50% more time is given to those who qualify. From the ACT’s website here is who qualifies: Students with physical disabilities, medical conditions, hearing or visual impairment, those who have diagnosed ADHD, psychiatric conditions, or learning disabilities.
Time is the critical variable on the ACT. You are in a race against the clock to work math problems faster, find the answers to reading comprehension problems faster, and understand scientific charts faster. Most people who take the test do not finish each section and randomly fill in the rest of the answers with one minute to go. The New York Post reported in a piece on test accommodations in 2018: “The ACT says roughly 5 percent of students taking the test receive accommodations, most commonly for extra time. Prior to 2003, it was less than 2 percent.”
The friend to which I refer increased his score from 25 to 34. He went from the 79th percentile to the 99th. He went from being the smartest kid in a room of 5 to the smartest in a room of 100. I do not mean to disparage him. He owed it to himself to do the best he could. I personally disagree with the system that allows this to occur and wish to shed some light on it. Should this individual become a doctor will he be given 50% more time to save his patients life when her heart stops?
Now onto stimulants. I provide some data and anecdotes. I make some assumptions about how widespread usage is but the actual impact of these drugs is hard to measure. I do some calculations on my own and compare the results to a study out of the University of Michigan.
Roughly 10% of people aged 18–25 are prescribed a stimulant with Adderall and Vyvanse being the most popular. I know a great many people who are prescribed these substances and I can attest that almost none of them take their prescribed dosage over the weekend or on holidays. Many are prescribed two pills a day and only take the first dose. Also, many of these people are prescribed such high doses due to having built up tolerances that one dose for them is equal to 2 or 3 doses for someone who does not regularly take them.
If we assume no pills get wasted which is logical as they are a prized commodity then the math tells us that the 10% of people with prescriptions give away 35% of their pills due to weekends and vacations (125/365 days). Also, let’s assume that a quarter of the 10% are able to give away half of all their pills, one per day due to never taking their second daily dose, another 25%. Also, we shall assume these dosages are at least twice as powerful as what the average non-prescribed person would take. So we can add these amounts and double them: (35% + 25%)*2 = 120%. This would imply that the 10% who are prescribed these drugs are enabling a further 12% of the population to take them for a total of 22%.
The University of Michigan did a study in 2018 which found that 24% of college students take Adderall or Vyvanse with only 9% stating that they have a prescription. My back of the envelope math compares favorably.
In Louisiana if you are caught with a weight of fewer than 28 grams of prescription amphetamine stimulants without a prescription you are going to face a sentence of at least one year behind bars and a maximum sentence of 10 years. You can also face a fine of up to 50,000 dollars.
I find it funny that 15% of college students risk the above when it is quite easy to get an Adderall prescription. From what I have heard the hardest part is often getting an appointment with a psychiatrist. Many psychiatrists will prescribe Adderall after a single appointment but you have to keep seeing them for a 15-minute session once per month to keep the prescription active. Most psychiatrists have begun to see patients for 15 minute intervals because $600 per hour once per month is too much of a burden for the average person, but $150 is doable. The fact that this disease can be diagnosed in 15 minutes with no objective test is interesting. Some places will make you fill out a questionnaire or take a test but these tests are easy to pass or fail depending on your desired outcome.
The above statistics prove this is a large enough hoop to jump through that most users choose not go the legal route. Since very few people get busted for buying a few pills from friends they must generally presume it to be worth the risk.
The German army was given Pervitin, a similar stimulant, en masse before the invasion of France in 1940. They conquered more French territory during the first 4 days of the invasion in the Second World War than their predecessors did in the entire 4 years of the First World War. Today it is official US Air Force policy to give stimulant drugs to pilots for lengthy missions. These drugs have changed the course of history.
America and industrial society generally were built on stimulants and I do not disparage anyone for taking them. But I do have a problem with some people claiming that these drugs only help a specific group of people: those diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. These drugs universally help people to be smarter and more focused but some experience greater side effects than others. ADHD/ADD is not an objectively diagnosable condition in the way that most diseases are. If I take a random cancer medication I am unlikely to experience any positive effects.
Some people refuse to take these drugs on a moral basis. Is it amoral to drink coffee before the ACT? Is it amoral to study for the test? Is it amoral to not give yourself every advantage in this one life you are allotted, if not for yourself then for your future children? We should be honest about what these drugs are capable of and let everyone choose if the cost and benefits make them a valid option for them. Under the supervision of a licensed physician of course.
