ACT Extended Time Within Private Schools: Accommodation or Advantage?
Lily Koplowitz
13/08/2026
Despite federal provisions, such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, ensuring that those needing accommodations can obtain them, wealthier communities procure accommodations at a higher rate, harming poorer individuals in need of accommodations and students without accommodations who feel disadvantaged. No existing research determines whether a tangible disadvantage occurs between the students who do not have accommodations and those who do. This study aims to fill this gap by establishing the extent to which wealthier students with accommodations benefit. We hypothesized that students with extended time would score higher than students without it. A survey of 67 private school students who took the ACT was distributed, yielding responses from predominantly White, wealthy students. These students shared scores and information regarding their testing. Average scores for each group were calculated using the 75 ST scores and 68 ET scores. The average ST score was 26.229, while the average ET score was 28.748 (p=.0129). 72.4% of ET students reported having enough time to complete the ACT to the best of their ability, compared with 34.2% of ST students. A study by Vidal Rodeiro and Macinska concluded that, when background characteristics are controlled for, students with accommodations perform the same or somewhat worse than students without accommodations, implying that accommodations effectively provide equal opportunity. The present study did not support this conclusion, as ET students outperformed ST students, suggesting that, within private schools, ET students taking the ACT receive an advantage.