New ACT test revisions will change NIU admission standards, without making the test more difficult for students.

NIU Testing Services Director Norman Gilbert said the test was revised by ACT employees last October to account for changes in high school curricula.

“The test was brought up to keep it in touch with the needs of educators today,” Gilbert said. The test was first used in 1959.

NIU Director of Admissions Daniel Oborn said the minimum entrance score for students applying to NIU will change from 17 to 19 using the new test. The new NIU admissions standards will begin next fall, he said.

“We’ll alter the numbers to accommodate for the new test scale, but it’s like comparing apples and oranges really,” Oborn said.

Any student who applies with a score from the old ACT test will have it altered by the admissions office to a score of comparable worth on the new scale, he said.

“Basically, the conversion will be invisible to students. We will do the conversions for them so they don’t have to worry about it,” Oborn said.

The average ACT score at NIU is 21.7, while the national average for college-bound students is 19.

Gilbert said the efforts of the ACT staff to update the test should be commended because it recreates the ACT as a more relevant educational tool.

The revised ACT test leaves out the natural and social science reading portions of the test and replaced them with an overall reading test and a science reasoning test.

“The scales for all of the tests would be extended to 36, whereas previously only the math scale and the overall scale extended that far,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert said these changes in scale will equalize the test results and provide high school educators with a more accurate idea of what classes they need to include.

He said the new test will make sub-scores, particular areas within each of the four individual tests, available to students and high school administrators.

Gilbert said that the old ACT test gave the results of the four individual tests and the overall score.

“The new test will show how the individual four tests break down into areas of emphasis,” he said.

For example, the new test would give the overall math score of a student, as well as his individual scores in algebra and geometry, Gilbert said.

The extensive breakdown would allow educators to see the areas of study in which their students need to improve, Gilbert said.