Your student takes the test. You pick the moment, protect the routine, and pay for whatever helps. This page covers your half: what the Enhanced ACT actually is, what daily prep should look like, and how to help without hovering.
Since July 2026, every administration is the Enhanced ACT. The 1–36 Composite now comes from English, Math, and Reading only. Science is an optional section with its own separate result. Math questions have four answer choices instead of five, and every section allows more time per question than the old test did.
A lot of prep material — and a lot of parental memory — still describes the old format. The full breakdown of what changed can help you make a prep decision, because it changes what’s worth practicing.
Test prep fails in a predictable way: a big weekend push, a week of nothing, repeat. What holds is the opposite — a short session most days, sized around twenty minutes, always aimed at the skills that currently need it. That’s the routine worth protecting as a parent, and it’s deliberately small enough to survive a school week.
RibbitEDU is built to enforce that shape rather than suggest it: missed questions return on a spaced schedule, and a skill has to hold up across two separate sessions before it counts as settled — a design a big Sunday can’t shortcut.
Pick the test date together, and put it somewhere visible — a real date turns prep from an argument into arithmetic. Protect one consistent slot in the day; after dinner works for most households. Then let the plan do the drilling. The least useful thing a parent can do is quiz from a workbook the test no longer resembles.
And ask “did you practice today” rather than “how did it go.” The first question is about the routine, which is the part that’s actually under anyone’s control. The second invites a nightly verdict — and nobody, at any age, practices well under one of those.
After their first week of practice, your student can add your email in Settings for a weekly summary: the practice calendar, which skills moved, and the current range with its caveat. One short email a week — never daily nudges, never guilt.
Two details we’re deliberate about: it’s the student’s choice to include you, because the practice is theirs — and if you ever unsubscribe, that decision is honored at your address and can’t be undone from their account. An off-switch that someone else can flip back isn’t one.
About twenty minutes, most days. Consistency is what does the work: missed questions come back on a schedule, and a skill only counts as solid after it holds up across two separate sessions. Cramming has nowhere to hide in that design, and that's deliberate.
The plan sizes itself to the runway it gets, and about ten weeks before the test date is the default it's built around. Starting later still works — the plan simply works with the days it has. Starting without a test date works too; it assumes a sensible horizon until one is chosen.
Science is optional on the Enhanced ACT and no longer part of the Composite. Some colleges still require or recommend it, especially for STEM applicants — check the schools on your student's list before deciding. RibbitEDU asks the same question when the study plan is set up, mirroring real registration.
RibbitEDU is a paid subscription, from $33/mo. Cancel any time from Settings. For comparison, private ACT tutoring commonly runs $2,250 for a package, and group prep classes start around $800.
Yes, if your student chooses to include you. After their first week, they can add your email in Settings for a weekly summary: the practice calendar, which skills moved, and the current range with its caveat. One short email a week — and if you unsubscribe, that choice belongs to you, not to their account.
The free 12-question diagnostic returns an honest starting range — no account needed to take it. Have your student sit it tonight, and the first real conversation about prep gets to start from evidence.