What Is A Good ACT Score?

Whether you’re in ACT-prep mode or you just got your ACT score back, you’re probably wondering, what is a good ACT score?

The highest ACT score is 36. 

But a “good ACT score”… that’s much more relative and flexible.

What is a good ACT score according to the colleges you hope to attend will depend on a variety of factors, especially… 

1. Your specific academic strengths and weaknesses (Do they generally match the grades you usually get? How does this fit into the big picture of your achievements?) 

2. Their admissions requirements 

3. Their scholarship requirements

ACT scores are not the sole determinant of admission, but they are an important part of a student’s college application. 

Counterintuitively, test scores hold considerable importance even at test-optional colleges.

Let’s be honest here. The ACT is not a perfect measure.

Within some wide parameters, there are certain ACT scores we could reasonably expect a student to achieve based on his or her performance in school. 

However, there are many factors that can impact a student's score beyond the simple acquisition of knowledge. 

That’s why my philosophy on testing and ACT prep is never one-size-fits-all. 

We have to take each student's unique situation into account.

With that in mind, there are 3 simple questions you can answer to determine whether your ACT score is strong enough that you can feel comfortable putting the #2 pencil down.

Before we get to our questions, though, here’s a quick review of how the ACT is scored. (Click here if you'd prefer an in-depth article on how the ACT is scored.)

How is the ACT scored?

The ACT is composed of four main multiple-choice sections: 

• English

• Math

• Reading

• Science

These four multiple-choice sections are scored on a scale of 1-36.

These four scores are then averaged to calculate your ACT composite score which falls between 1 and 36.

In the event that your ACT composite score is a decimal, it will be rounded to the nearest whole number.

What's the average ACT composite score?

The lowest possible ACT score is a zero. 

The highest possible ACT composite score is 36.

Using the percentiles from this ACT percentile chart, the average section scores are as follows:

• English: 20

• Math: 19

• Reading: 20

• Science: 20

Therefore, the average ACT composite score is 20.

3 Questions To Help You Decide If Your ACT Score Is Good Enough To Stop Testing

Now that we're on the same page with ACT scoring, read on to discover if your ACT scores are good enough to bring your testing journey to an end or if you have a bit more work to do before you can fully escape from Testing Land.

Question #1: Based on your academic strengths and weaknesses, what ACT score can you reasonably expect to achieve?

Here are two ways I help my new students evaluate where their ACT scores currently are in comparison to what I would expect them to be able to accomplish.

These are loose guidelines. I use them to get a sense of how far off the mark a student may be from what she can reasonably hope to achieve. 

Anticipated ACT Score Using GPA

Based on a student’s GPA, I would expect his or her score to fall within the following ACT composite score range after ACT prep. 

• Over 4.0: 30 - 36

• 3.5 - 4.0: 26 - 30

• 3.0 - 3.5: 22 - 26

• 2.5 - 3.0: 18 - 22

Anticipated ACT Score Using Grades

Using a student’s English class performance as a guide, here’s what I would expect from the English and Reading sections...

• Strong (A’s and high B’s) Honors/AP Students + Strong Readers: 28 - 36

• Strong (A’s and high B’s) Students in Regular English/B-Level Honors/AP Students: 26 - 32

• B Students in Regular English/C-Level Honors/AP Students: 22 - 26

• All Others: 18 - 22

On the Math and Science side, once a student has taken Algebra 2, I would expect the scores to come out as follows...

• Strong (A’s and high B’s) Honors/AP Students: 28 - 36

• Strong (A’s and high B’s) Students in Regular Level Math /B-Level Honors/AP Students: 26 - 32

• B Students in Regular Level Math/C-Level Honors/AP Students: 22 - 26

• All Others: 18 - 22

Some students outpace these estimates even without prep. 

Others come in well under the mark on their first testing efforts.

If you are disheartened by your ACT scores so far, I can tell you that underperforming on the ACT as compared to your academic progress is very common. 

It’s something I help students of all ability levels surmount on a daily basis.

The great news is that it doesn’t take thousands of practice questions or hours and hours of tutoring to overcome score deficits.

In the last decade of teaching the ACT, I’ve found that just a little bit of strategy-focused prep can help students uncover crucial points that positively impact their admissions and financial aid prospects.

About 4 hours of prep is often all it takes to nudge those previously lackluster ACT scores toward much stronger, more accurately representative numbers.

While I’m a big fan of complete ACT prep programs that review academic concepts and provide customizable strategies, if you need a fast course that can boost scores quickly, you should consider my strategy-only ACT Quick Prep program which can be completed in less than 4 hours.

Question #2: What are the average ACT scores for accepted students at 3-6 of your favorite prospective colleges?

Once you’ve considered the scores listed above, check in with prospective colleges regarding their average ACT scores for admission.

I highly recommend creating a college list spreadsheet to keep track of the data.

There is also an art to both finding and interpreting this data, along with planning the best next steps for how to leverage the information to achieve the acceptance letters you’re looking for. 

So keep in mind that if you want expert guidance, you can’t get better than my sister company, March Consulting. 

Starting with their tried & true college comparison data dives, they have a 100% success rate at helping students get into dream colleges and earning over $34 Million in scholarships and counting.

Most colleges list the middle 50% of the range of accepted scores, eliminating the very high and very low score outliers from the accepted applicants the previous year. In order to be considered a strong applicant in the following year, you'll want to target the upper half of this range. 

For example, the average ACT score for Harvard is between 33 and 35. 

Question #3: What are the score requirements for merit aid at your favorite colleges?

You may be tempted to skip this question if you feel you aren't the kind of student who will qualify for scholarships.

That would be a serious mistake - one that can cost you thousands of dollars in free tuition dollars down the line!

The time to research paying for college is the same time you select the colleges you're going to apply to. 

If you know where to look, you can find colleges that will pay you to attend - even with 50th or 60th-percentile ACT scores.

You don't have to be a 99th percentile scoring, 4.7 GPA earning student to earn 4- and 5-figure scholarships to a great college. 

You just have to know where to look to find the money.

You just need advice on how to find those hidden-gem, perfect-fit colleges for you.

The truth?

One ACT point can make the difference between earning nothing and having thousands of dollars in free tuition money in your pocket.

Without doing scholarship research early, you run the risk of walking away from testing when you are incredibly close to earning seriously impactful tuition awards.

So, when you’re researching admissions averages, look into the score requirements for merit aid (sometimes referred to as academic scholarships on college websites).

Yes, getting into a college is important, but don’t be one of the many families who overlook the financial aid impact of ACT scores. 

Here's what one of my online ACT prep clients had to say...

Dea's daughter's ACT score improvements led to $100,000 in scholarships over 4 years. A worthwhile investment in ACT prep, yes?

And remember, if this all seems overwhelming, rest assured that you won't have to walk this path alone.

The link between higher scores and tuition dollars is the reason that all of my online ACT prep courses include my Cash for College workshop as a free bonus. I help students improve their scores and then help families understand what to do with those higher ACT scores to turn them into cash for college.

I've had students earn 4-, 5-, and 6-figure scholarships and I can help you do the same.

Your Next Steps…

Once you’ve done the research and determined the difference between your current ACT score and the ACT score you want, you're either going to find that you are:

1. Within or above a competitive ACT score range and are done with testing, or

2. Falling a bit short of your desired score range and in need of some ACT prep.

If your scores are in range to make you a competitive candidate for admissions and scholarships, congratulations! Put the #2 pencil down and move on with your life.

That said, most students land in the I Still Have Work To Do group.

Once you’ve named your score goals and assessed the gap between your current performance and the scores you want, it’s time to come up with a game plan for preparing for success.

You can get started right now by accessing some of my favorite ACT prep resources here or download my free eBook, The Insider's Guide to the ACT & SAT, in which I share 35 of my top strategies for success on the college admissions exams.

If you need help maximizing the effect of the others and winding your way through the often confusing forest of college admissions tasks, pop on over to our sister company, March Consulting, where we help students and families with everything related to getting into college and making sure you can pay for it too.