Understanding Your ACT Score: A Comprehensive Guide

The ACT (originally an abbreviation of American College Testing) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Understanding your ACT score is crucial for college applications, financial aid eligibility, and gauging your academic strengths. ACT scoring doesn't have to be a mystery. Learn how the answers you get right on the ACT translate to your overall score.

How the ACT is Scored

On each section of the ACT , the number of correct answers converts to a scaled score of 1-36. Here’s how ACT scoring works. The ACT has multiple-choice sections (English, Math, Reading, and Science) and an optional writing test.

Calculating Your Raw Score

You’re given a point for every question you get right (there’s no penalty or point deduction for wrong answers). The total number of questions you get right on each test (English, Math, Reading, and Science) equals your raw score. Each question answered correctly is worth one raw point, and there is no penalty for marking incorrect answers on the multiple-choice parts of the test; a student can answer all questions without a decrease in their score due to incorrect answers.

Converting to Scaled Scores

Your raw score for each test is then converted into a scale score (1-36). The multiple-choice test sections of the ACT (all except the optional writing test) are individually scored on a scale of 1-36.

Determining Your Composite Score

Your composite score, or overall ACT score, is the average of your scores on each test. Add up your English, Math, Reading, and Science scores and divide by 4. (Round to the nearest whole number).

Understanding the Writing Test Score

The writing test score is a little more complicated. If you take the ACT Plus Writing (which will ask you to write an essay), your writing will be evaluated by two readers. Both readers score your essay on a scale of 1-6 in four different areas. The ACT essay score will appear on your score report on a scale from 2-12. Two trained readers assign each essay subscores between 1 and 6 in four different categories: Ideas and Analysis, Development and Support, Organization, Language Use and Conventions. The subscores from the two different readers are summed to produce final domain scores from 2 to 12 (or 0) in each of the four categories. If the two readers' subscores differ by more than one point, then a senior third reader makes the final decision on the score. The four domain scores are combined through a process that has not been described to create a writing section score between 1 and 36.

English Language Arts (ELA) Score

ACT also reports an English Language Arts (ELA) score out of 36, which represents your overall performance on the English, reading, and writing tests, but this value is NOT included in your ACT Composite Score calculation.

Interpreting Your ACT Score

If you've taken the ACT and gotten your ACT test scores back, you probably want to know how you did. Or you might be planning for the ACT and want to know what ACT composite score to aim for. The ACT score range is from 1-36. As you might imagine, the higher your score, the better you did. To answer this question, it's important to understand how ACT scores work.

Percentile Rankings

Your composite score from 1-36 corresponds to a percentile that compares how you did to the general population of ACT test-takers. A higher percentile means you scored higher than that percentage of students. ACT test scores are set up to follow a normal distribution. This means that student performance tends to cluster around the middle of the scale-most test-takers score somewhere between a little below and a little above the average score.

Benchmarks for ACT Score Percentiles

The average ACT score is 19. If you've scored 20, then you've scored higher than 50% of test-takers. That's pretty good, depending on your frame of reference.

Read also: Mastering the SAT

In terms of benchmarks for ACT score percentiles, a score of 16 places you at the 35th percentile, meaning you've scored better than about a third of test-takers. We've already noted that a 19 is an average ACT score, at the 50th percentile. A score of 24 means you've scored better than about 78% of students. A 28 means you've scored better than 90% of students, and a 30 means you've scored better than 94% of them!

You can also see that not many people score near the bottom and the top of the scale because there's so little percentile change between scores here. By contrast, around the middle of the scale at 20, where most test-takers are clustered, a bump of a few points makes a big difference: going from 18 to 22 moves you from the 47th to the 69th percentile-a whopping 22 percentile points! But a similar 4-point bump from 24 to 28 only takes you from the 78th to the 90th percentile. That's just a 12-percentile bump.

You may notice that section percentiles are a little different than the composite scale. ACT score of 21 = right in the middle!

What Constitutes a Good ACT Score?

We've discussed how your ACT score compares to all the other test-takers. But what's more important is what makes a good ACT score for you, personally, based on the schools you are interested in. To get a clear understanding of what score you should aim for, research the average ACT scores of the schools you're interested in. Different colleges have varying average ACT score ranges. While some universities may look for students with scores in the 30s, others may consider scores in the mid-20s as competitive.

A 29 places you in the top 10% of test-takers, and it's a strong score for admission to schools like Texas A&M, Penn State, Ohio State, and Clemson University. By contrast, a 29 would be an incredibly high score for less selective schools, like Oregon State (average ACT score 25), Kansas State (average ACT score 24) and University of Southern Indiana (average ACT score 21). Of course, it's also worth noting that the higher your standardized test scores, the more likely you are to get offered merit scholarships. Another thing to consider is that a higher ACT or SAT score can help you if you have a lower GPA than a school is looking for. As a general rule of thumb, you'll need at least an ACT score of 31 to qualify during admissions decisions at an Ivy League school. Some colleges, including Harvard and Yale, have a minimum score requirement of 32. However, these are just base ACT scores to be considered for admission.

Read also: Comprehensive ACT Guide

Determining Your Personal ACT Score Goal

So how do you find out what makes for good ACT scores for the colleges you're interested in? To work through the following steps, we'll be filling out a worksheet for all the schools you're planning to apply to. Fill in all the schools you're already sure you want to apply to in the leftmost column. I recommend that you take the time to research schools first, though, so that you have a realistic target score.

Research College ACT Score Ranges: Click on the ACT and GPA post (or the Admission Requirements post; they'll both have the information) and scroll down to find the 25th and 75th percentile composite ACT scores for admitted students.
Understand Percentiles: For the University of Alabama, the 25th percentile score is 22. As a quick reminder, the 25th percentile means that 25% of admits have a score at or below that number. The 75th percentile score for the University of Alabama is 30. That means that students with that composite score scored better than 75% of all the other admits. So scoring at that level or above puts you in the top quarter of admits score-wise-a very competitive score! If you score at the 75th percentile for any school, you have a great chance at getting in (assuming your other credentials are appropriate for the school).
Identify Your Target Score: To calculate your target ACT goal score, look at the 75th percentile column. Find the highest score in that column. That's your composite score goal. You might be thinking-hey, wait! Why did I fill out that entire sheet if I was just going to pick the highest 75th percentile score? Well, the advantage of filling out all that information is that you now have it handy as a reference.
Share Your Goal: #1: Share it with your parents. This will be a helpful conversation around your personal goals and how you want to achieve your target ACT score. #2: Tape it to your wall.

ACT Score Chart for Popular Schools

To make determining your goal score a little easier, here is an ACT score chart with the 25th-75th percentile composite ACT test scores for 2025 for 35 popular schools. *Test-blind schools.

What to Do If You Miss Your Goal Score

If you take the test and you get lower than your goal score, what should you do? Don't panic-you have a few options.

Retake the Test: If you have the time to prepare for the test and retake it, this is probably your best strategy if you are really set on all your schools. (Unless you were only 1 or maybe 2 points under, in which case it might actually be a poor use of your time to retake the test-see strategy #2). You should also make sure you actually prepare for enough hours to make the meaningful difference in score that you need. You should take the ACT only two to three times. Retaking the ACT offers an opportunity to improve your scores, and you can also benefit from superscoring.
Assess the Score Difference: If you only missed your goal score by 1-2 points, depending on the schools you're applying to, you might not need to do anything. Let's say you were going for a 35, but you got a 34. You could retake the test, but you don't necessarily have to.
Adjust Your School List: However, if you were more than 2 points short of your goal score, you should consider strategies 1 or 3. If you are 3+ points short of your goal score and you don't have time to retake the test, your best strategy is to adjust your list of schools. Let's say you were going for a 32, but you got a 28. You may have had Boston University (middle 50% 31-33) as a match, but now it's more of a reach. And maybe you had Hofstra University (middle 50% 26-31) as a safety school but now it's closer to a match. So add some safety schools for your score, like SUNY Albany (middle 50% 22-31) and Pace University (middle 50% 23-28).

Key Components of the ACT

The required portion of the ACT is divided into three multiple-choice subject tests: English, mathematics, and reading. Subject test scores, including the optional science section, range from 1 to 36; all scores are integers. The English, mathematics, and reading tests also have subscores ranging from 1 to 18 (the subject score is not the sum of the subscores). In addition, students taking the optional writing test receive a writing score ranging from 2 to 12 (this is a change from the previous 1-36 score range); the optional science and writing scores do not affect the composite score.

English Test

The first section is the 45-minute English test covering usage/mechanics, sentence structure, and rhetorical skills. The 75-question test consists of five passages with various sections underlined on one side of the page and options to correct the underlined portions on the other side of the page.

Math Test

The second section is a 60-minute, 60-question math test with the usual distribution of questions being approximately 14 covering pre-algebra, 10 elementary algebra, 9 intermediate algebra, 14 plane geometry, 9 coordinate geometry, and 4 elementary trigonometry questions. However, the distribution of question topics varies from test to test. The difficulty of questions usually increases as a test taker moves on to higher question numbers. Calculators are permitted in this section only. The calculator requirements are stricter than the SAT's in that computer algebra systems (such as the TI-89) are not allowed; however, the ACT permits calculators with paper tapes, that make noise (but must be disabled), or that have power cords with certain "modifications" (i.e., disabling the mentioned features), which the SAT does not allow. Standard graphing calculators, such as the TI-83 and TI-84, are allowed. Within the TI-Nspire family, the standard and CX versions are allowed while the CX CAS is not. As of April 2025 for online tests, and September 2025 for paper-and-pencil tests, each math question has four answer choices instead of five.

Reading Test

The reading section is a 35-minute, 40-question test that consists of four sections, three of which contain one long prose passage and one which contains two shorter prose passages. The passages are representative of the levels and kinds of text commonly encountered in first-year college curriculum. This reading test assesses skills in three general categories: key ideas and details, craft and structure, and integration of knowledge and ideas. Test questions will usually ask students to derive meaning from texts referring to what is explicitly stated or by reasoning to determine implicit meanings.

Science Test

The optional science section is a 35-minute, 40-question test. There are seven passages each followed by five to seven questions. The passages have three different formats: Data Representation, Research Summary, and Conflicting Viewpoints. While the format used to be very predictable (i.e. there were always three Data Representation passages with 5 questions following each, 3 Research Summary passages with six questions each, and one Conflicting Viewpoints passage with 7 questions), when the number of passages was reduced from 7 to 6, more variability in the number of each passage type started to appear. But so far, there is still always only one Conflicting Viewpoints passage.

Writing Test Details

The optional writing section, which is always administered at the end of the test, is 40 minutes (increasing from the original 30-minute time limit on the September 2015 test). While no particular essay structure is required, the essays must be in response to a given prompt; the prompts are about broad social issues (changing from the old prompts which were directly applicable to teenagers), and students must analyze three different perspectives given and show how their opinion relates to these perspectives. The essay does not affect the composite score or the English section score; it is only given as a separate writing score and is included in the ELA score.

Understanding Your ACT Score Report

There are a lot of charts and graphs and numbers. The first thing you’ll see on your ACT score report is a chart with your composite score and section scores. Your ACT® score report provides detailed information about your exam performance to you, your high school, and the colleges or universities to which you have applied. Your ACT score report displays your composite score, section scores, cross-test scores, and subscores. In addition, you’ll also receive information about reporting categories for each subject, along with your national and state ranks.

Key Elements of the Score Report

Composite Score: This is the biggie-your overall ACT score. When someone asks, Hey, how’d you do on the ACT?, this is the score they’re referring to. The composite score is the average of your four main section scores (math, science, English, and reading). On your score report, the most important score that you will see is your ACT composite score. This score will range from 1 (lowest) to 36 (highest).
Section Scores: Your ACT composite score and each test score (English, mathematics, reading, science) range from 1 (low) to 36 (high). Additionally, you will see ACT section scores for each of these four sections, evaluated on the same scale of 1-36.
English: This is how you did on the English section, out of a possible 36 points.
Reading: This is how you did on the Reading section, out of a possible 63 points. (Not a typo-just checking to see if you’re still paying attention!
Writing: If you took the essay section, this is your essay score.
ELA: You’ll only get an ELA score if you took the Writing Test.

Additional Insights

College Readiness Benchmarks: The purple lines show the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks in each section. ACT has conducted research to estimate the scores at which students are most likely to succeed in college courses. So, in the example above, this student scored just a bit higher than the College Readiness Benchmark for Reading. These ACT benchmarks denote a student’s readiness for college-level coursework. The Benchmarks are scores on the ACT subject-area tests that represent the level of achievement required for students to have a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit-bearing first-year college courses. These college courses include English composition, college algebra, introductory social science courses, and biology.
Score Ranges: The bands around your score lines show a score range.
National and State Ranks: You get national and state ranks for both your composite and section scores. Your rank displays the percentage of students who scored the same or lower than you. Your national ranks tell you how your scores compare to those earned by recent high school graduates who took the ACT.
Reporting Categories: Each reporting category includes the total number of questions in that category, the total number of questions in that category you answered correctly, and the percentage of questions correct. Your score report gets more detailed as you scroll down the page. The ACT section scores are further divided into categories and percentages of correct answers. You will also find the college readiness range for each reporting category.
Cross-Test Scores: Your score report also displays two cross-test scores for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and ELA (English Language Arts), ranging from 1-36. The STEM score represents how you performed on your Math and Science tests, whereas your ELA score combines your performance on the English, Reading, and Writing tests.

Analyzing Your Performance

Raw Count vs. Percentage: It’s tempting to just look at the bar graphs that show you the percentage of each question type that you answered correctly. For instance, in math, that 22% on Statistics and Probability looks pretty bad-clearly, you’d want to spend a lot of time on that topic, right? Not necessarily. If you look at the question counts, the student only missed 4 questions on that topic.
Connected Topics or Skills: Especially on the math side of things, some skills are linked to one another. For example, Integrating Essential Skills questions address concepts typically learned in middle school. These topics often influence a student’s understanding of later concepts in algebra or geometry.

Sending Your ACT Scores to Colleges

Based on pricing points, your score reports can be classified into three categories.

Free Reports: You can send up to four free ACT score reports to colleges until the Thursday after your test date. While this may appear as an easy option, you will not be able to see your score report before it is sent to colleges.
Standard/Regular Reports: If your free score report period has passed, you can use the standard/regular reports to send your scores to colleges. You need to pay $18 for this report per test date and per school. The benefit of going with this option is that you will be able to see your scores before they are sent to colleges and take advantage of the score choice policy.
Direct Submission: Many colleges now allow students to send their scores directly on their admission application without submitting the official ACT report.

Score Choice Policy

With the score choice policy, you’ll have the option of sending either score reports from the specific test event or you can choose to send your superscore.

Retaking the ACT

If you're not satisfied with your initial scores, don't worry - you can retake the ACT up to 12 times. A strategic move would be to start your ACT journey as early as the fall of your junior year.

Factors to Consider Before Retaking

Performance Plateau:
Negative Impression:
Limited Resources: Another element when contemplating retakes is the resources they demand.

ACT vs. SAT

When deciding between the ACT and the SAT, understanding how the scores compare can help you choose which test might play to your strengths. Typically, a composite ACT score correlates to an SAT score using specific concordance tables provided by the College Board and ACT.

Test-Optional Policies

However, many colleges and universities have test-optional policies, meaning they no longer require SAT scores for admission. This shift lets you decide whether or not to submit your test scores based on whether they truly reflect your academic abilities and strengthen your application.

ACT Test Dates and Fees

The ACT is offered seven times a year in the United States and its territories, Puerto Rico, and Canada: in September, October, December, February, April, June, and July.

Fees

Without writing or science: US$65.00 as of 2025. Science add-on: US$4.00 as of 2025. Writing add-on: US$25.00 as of 2025. The ACT with writing has a higher price tag than the ACT without writing ($93 vs.

Accommodations

Students with verifiable disabilities, including physical and learning disabilities, are eligible to take the test with accommodations.

Historical Context

The ACT was first introduced in November 1959 by University of Iowa professor Everett Franklin Lindquist as a competitor to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The ACT originally consisted of four tests: English, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Natural Sciences. In 1989, however, the Social Studies test was changed into a Reading section (which included a social sciences subsection), and the Natural Sciences test was renamed the Science Reasoning test, with more emphasis on problem-solving skills as opposed to memorizing scientific facts. In February 2005, an optional Writing Test was added to the ACT.

How ACT is Developed

To develop the test, ACT incorporates the objectives for instruction from middle and high schools throughout the United States, reviews approved textbooks for subjects taught in Grades 7-12, and surveys educators on which knowledge skills are relevant to success in postsecondary education.

The ACT's Role in College Admissions

Most colleges use ACT scores as only one factor in the admission process. In addition, some states and individual school districts have used the ACT to assess student learning and/or the performance of schools, requiring all high school students to take the ACT, regardless of whether they are college bound.

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