Average ACT Score: All You Need to Know

In the US, universities and colleges use the ACT multiple-choice exam for graduate admissions. You must take the ACT exam to graduate from an American university. The ACT exam consists of four subjects—Science, Mathematics, English, and Reading—while the fifth subject writing is optional. The ACT exam, comparable to an admissions test, is a way of methodically evaluating a student’s talents. Colleges and universities use the exam to determine a student’s eligibility for enrolment as part of the admissions process. You should also be familiar with the score, the exam syllabus, and the exam format in order to jump-start your preparation. In this blog, we will get to know about the average ACT score required in universities. 

What is the Average ACT Score?

The ACT score is used to evaluate the performance of students who submitted their papers on the same day. The ACT assigns grades between 1 to 36 for each subject area. Students don’t lose points for giving wrong answers; instead, they don’t get credit for them and do get credit for the right answers. The ACT has a 36th-score cutoff. Each section of the ACT exam is given a mark out of 36.

By combining the results from the Science, Mathematics, English, and Reading parts, the ACT composite score is determined. ACT scores are currently 20.6 on average. The ACT score range, based on a percentile system, is 1-36 score points. Percentile scoring describes a test taker’s results relative to all other test takers on that day.

Importance of Average ACT Score

Your ACT score is compared to those of other test-takers in the ACT ranking. The percentage is the proportion of test takers who obtained a score higher or equal to yours. For instance, receiving a 75% on the ACT indicates that you performed better than 75% of other test-takers.  

The percentile evaluations are crucial because they let colleges and universities compare your test results to those of other applicants. On the other hand, the ACT score varies depending on the college to which one desires to apply, making it more significant than the ranking. 

Since the typical ACT score is around 20.8, a score between 21 and 23 places you in the middle percentile. A score of 23 puts you in the running for prestigious colleges because it is higher than the national average. However, a few famous universities and schools might reject you based on your score. You do stand out from other test takers if you receive a 24+ score. However, one might need a much better score to enter colleges like Princeton.

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Section-Wise Breakdown

The maximum ACT score is 36, and this is the scale used to evaluate the ACT exam for each section. The global ACT average is 20.6. Let’s now examine the average ACT test score in relation to the various ACT exam components.

Section Average	Average Score
Average English ACT Score	19.9
Average Maths ACT Score	20.2
Average  Science ACT Score	20.6
Average Reading ACT Score	21.2

Now that we’ve discussed the subjects that are required for the ACT exam, let’s speak about the fifth, optional subject, writing. Your overall score is unaffected by your writing section score.   

The ACT writing scale has a 2–12 range. The average score on the ACT Writing Exam is 6.5. Extremely selective universities favour a score of 8 or higher. The numbers 10, 11, and 12 stick out and show excellent writing skills.

Universities at both the college and university levels make their own decisions regarding whether or not to require the ACT writing exam results for admission. 

Average ACT Scores for Colleges

Colleges evaluate applicants based on their performance on the ACT exam. Most colleges have a minimum score that applicants must achieve in order to be accepted.

University	25th Percentile	75th Percentile
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	33	35
Stanford University	31	35
Harvard University	32	35
University of California, Berkely	30	34
University of California, Los Angeles	28	33
Yale University	31	35
The University of Texas at Austin	26	32
Cornell University	30	34
California Institute of Technology	34	35
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	30	33
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	26	31
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	29	33
University of Southern California	30	33
Dartmouth College	30	34
Duke University	31	34
Johns Hopkins University	32	34
Princeton University	32	35
University of Pennsylvania	31	34
Carnegie Mellon University	31	34
Ohio State University-Main Campus	27	31
Northwestern University	31	34
Williams College	31	34
University of Chicago	32	35
University of California-San Diego	28	33
North Carolina State University at Raleigh	26	31
Brown University	31	34

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FAQs

An essential prerequisite for the college or university you want to attend is a respectable ACT score. You should work at a score of at least 30 in order to be accepted into top universities abroad. For more information, you can connect with our Leverage Edu experts at 1800572000.