Complete Guide to Your ACT Score Report
Before we delve into the complete score report for the ACT’s we must first answer a few fundamental questions in this article. It would prove to be a comprehensive guide to truly understanding your extensive results and applying them in the most efficient way possible in order to get admissions.
Before we delve into the complete score report for the ACT’s we must first answer a few fundamental questions in this article. The ACT’s and the SATs are in fact the most awaited test that is written by almost every high school kid. As such, it’s imperative that you know how to interpret your scores and glean from them as much information as possible. Since these tests are administered to a large number of people there should be a clear way for them to review and comprehend their results in order to use them in a beneficial manner. Especially the new ACT’s have been updated as late as September 2016. This article would prove to be a comprehensive guide to truly understanding your extensive results and applying them in the most efficient way possible in order to get admissions.
What score would you require to be admitted into a good college?
While there is no minimum ACT test score required for college admissions, each school has an ideal ACT score range in which they hope applicants will score. Every school has a different approach to weighting standardized test scores. As a general rule, though, it’s good to fall somewhere in the middle 50% of last year’s accepted students’ score range. The higher you fall in the range (or even beyond it), the better.
|
Top 20 Universities |
25th Percentile ACT Scores of Accepted Students |
75th Percentile ACT Scores of Accepted Students |
Acceptance Rate |
|
Princeton University |
33 |
35 |
5.8% |
|
Harvard University |
33 |
35 |
4.6% |
|
Columbia University |
33 |
35 |
5.3% |
|
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
34 |
36 |
6.7% |
|
Yale University |
33 |
35 |
5.9% |
|
Stanford University |
32 |
35 |
4.4% |
|
University of Chicago |
33 |
35 |
6.2% |
|
University of Pennsylvania |
33 |
35 |
7.7% |
|
Northwestern University |
32 |
35 |
8.9% |
|
Duke University |
33 |
35 |
7.4% |
|
Johns Hopkins University |
33 |
35 |
9.2% |
|
California Institute of Technology |
35 |
36 |
6.4% |
|
Dartmouth College |
32 |
35 |
7.9% |
|
Brown University |
31 |
35 |
6.6% |
|
University of Notre Dame |
33 |
35 |
8.2% |
|
Vanderbilt University |
33 |
36 |
9.1% |
|
Cornell University |
32 |
35 |
10.6% |
|
Rice University |
33 |
35 |
8.7% |
|
Washington University in St. Louis |
33 |
35 |
14% |
|
University of California—Los Angeles |
25 |
33 |
12.3% |
How exactly is the ACT scored?
Simply put, your score for each section is calculated by a computer that scans the number of answers you got correct and produces your raw score. Your raw score for each section is then converted into a scaled score, ranging between 1-36, which takes into account very slight differences in difficulty on different forms of the ACT. Basically, it ensures that a specific score indicates the exact same level of mastery across every version of the test.
Next, your scaled scores from 1-36 for each of the four required sections (English, Math, Reading, and Science) are averaged together to create a composite score indicating your overall performance. Your composite score is rounded to the nearest whole number, with decimals less than .5 being rounded down and decimals equal to or greater than .5 being rounded up. This means that you can in fact get a perfect composite score without getting perfect section scores; for example, if you were to score a 36, 34, 36, 36 on each of the sections, your average would be 35.5, which rounds up to 36.
In conclusion, your ACT scores are incredibly important but with the help of this article and some diligent studying these tests should not pose a problem.
