When registering for the ACT, your student will be asked whether he or she would like to receive information from colleges and scholarship agencies about educational, scholarship, career, and financial aid opportunities. Checking the box for this Educational Opportunity Service (EOS) is optional, but the majority of students choose to take part. In fact, 88% of the 2011 high school graduates participated in EOS on at least one test date.

If your student checks the box, he or she authorizes ACT to send information (name, address, gender, high school, email address, date of birth, year of high school graduation, racial/ethnic background, and intended college major) to colleges, scholarship organizations, ACT, and other organizations so they may contact your student about programs that he or she may be interested in exploring. A student's test scores and Social Security number are not reported. All organizations that receive this information have agreed to use it only for this purpose.

While checking the box for the EOS option can inform your student of potentially worthwhile opportunities, just be sure that you understand that your child's contact information will be distributed to many different organizations.

For more information about Educational Opportunity Service (EOS), please visit www.act.org/eos/.

Source: ACT Parent