What’s A Good ACT Score?
If you are registered to take the ACT or sit for the ACT exam, you are expected to be curious about a good ACT score or what ACT score you should aim for to get into your dream college.
How to define a good ACT score includes:
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The generally accepted good ACT score
Although some scores are acceptable for admission into some specific institutions, a good score generally is determined by comparison with scores of other students who sat to take the test.
It implies that how good your ACT score is is determined by the number of test-takers you scored better than. This comparison can be made either by using averages or percentiles.
When using average, the mean average scores of all students who sat for the exams are taken.
If your score falls above average, then your ACT score is good. But if your ACT score falls below average, then your ACT score is not good.
If it falls in the lowest range, then you’re one of the poorly performed students who took the ACT score that year.
On the other hand, Percentiles rate the percentage of students you did better than or that you had the same score with among students who you took the test together.
For instance, if you fall in the 80th percentile, it means you did better than 80% of the people who sat for the test. If your score falls at or below 25%, it implies that you didn’t do very well on the ACT.
ACT scores in the 50th percentile are considered average, those in the 75th percentile are considered good, and those in the 90th percentile are considered excellent scores.
The ACT score that is good for you
That you fall in the percentage of those who passed the ACT doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve achieved your ACT score goal. That is the score that’s high enough to get you accepted into the colleges you applied to.
Each college has its specific requirements for students that can be accepted, so scoring 28 though might gain you admission into Kansas State, but it is not enough to get you admitted into Harvard.
So, if two students scored 28 on their ACTs and one applied to Harvard while the other applied to Kansas State, although they both did well, the one who applied to Harvard has a slim chance of being admitted to his dream school.
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The difference between good ACT scores over the years
Another way to define a good ACT score is by checking the ACT score’s percentiles and averages. Based on available average and percentile data, there has been only the slightest increase in ACT scores over the past six years. This gives you an idea of your target score since any increase in the percentile and average would be none or very minute.
How To Set Your Target Score?
The first step is making a list of all the colleges you’re planning to attend.
The second step is to research the school’s ACT score info, determine the average score and the 25th and 75th percentile of the students admitted into each school, and write it down.
The final important step is to choose your target score based on the highest 75th percentile score on your list and work towards getting this score or higher. You shouldn’t select a target score that is too out of reach to you.
Final Words
If you just registered for the ACT, having a set goal will boost your morale and cause you to study hard and have an excellent score. And if you already sat for the exam, you now know how to calculate how well you did.
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