Test Prep
Last Updated:
What is a Good ACT Score for Top Colleges?
National percentiles, top-school floors & the point where prep stops paying
Arkesh P.
Chief Operating Officer at Crimson
Summary
A good ACT score sits at or above the 50th percentile of your target school's enrolled range, and a score at the 75th settles the testing question. At the most selective schools that band is narrow, with floors clustered between 32 and 34 and a 75th percentile of 35 almost everywhere. Published ranges cover only the students who enrolled and submitted, and on the ACT that's often fewer than a quarter of the class, so read them as context and set a target school by school.
What is a good ACT score?
A good ACT score sits at or above the 50th percentile of your target school's enrolled range. Clear the 75th and you've outscored three in four of the students who enrolled there with a score, which is as much as testing can do for you.
At the most selective schools that means a 33 or 34 as the line you have to clear, and a 35 as the score that settles it almost everywhere. The floors are where schools differ, running from 29 at Florida to 35 at Johns Hopkins.
There's no single good number, because the question has three answers depending on the lens. Nationally, a 30 ranks in the top 6% of all test takers. At each school, that same 30 sits three points below Harvard's floor and one below Georgia Tech's. And by purpose, since honors colleges, direct-entry programs and published merit bands run their own gates.
The 2025 ACT redesign: what changed
The ACT was rebuilt in 2025, and the structural change is the one that matters here. Your composite is now the average of three sections, English, math and reading, each scored 1 to 36. Science no longer feeds into it, and survives as a standalone optional section with its own score, the way writing does. The test is also materially shorter for it, roughly two hours without science and just under three hours with it.
Two things follow for your planning. Older advice and older published ranges describe a four-section composite, so treat any pre-2025 number carefully. And science is now a choice you make at registration, one that turns on where you're applying and what you're good at. Our enhanced ACT guide covers the rest. [internal link: enhanced ACT article]
What is an average ACT score?
ACT's current national ranks are built on the graduating classes of 2024, 2025 and 2026, and they apply to tests taken between September 2026 and August 2027. The mean composite is 19.1, which is where the national conversation and the college-list conversation part company. A 24 puts you in the top fifth of test takers, a 28 in the top 9%, a 30 in the top 6%, and a 34 in the top 1%.
ACT composite | National Rank | Top |
36 | 100 | 1% |
35 | 99 | 1% |
34 | 99 | 1% |
33 | 98 | 2% |
32 | 97 | 3% |
30 | 94 | 6% |
28 | 91 | 9% |
26 | 86 | 14% |
24 | 80 | 20% |
22 | 72 | 28% |
20 | 63 | 37% |
18 | 52 | 48% |
16 | 41 | 59% |
These ranks stop a 30 from feeling like a failure, and they explain why the school table reads so much higher. National ranks measure you against everyone who took the test. The school table measures you against the students who enrolled at one specific college.
ACT score ranges at top colleges for 2026/27
Each row below shows the most recently reported mid-50% ACT range for enrolled students, with two caveats attached.
First, an ACT range covers a small slice of the class. USC's rests on 12% of enrolled students, Columbia's on 17%, Michigan's on 18%, and Florida tops the table at 39%. Where a school is test-optional, strong scorers submit and weaker ones don't, which lifts the range above the class it describes. Where a score is required, students meet the requirement with the SAT or the ACT, so the range covers only those who picked the ACT. SAT ranges on the same campuses usually rest on two or three times as many students, so these are the thinner evidence.
Second, the withhold floor restates that 25th percentile. At a test-optional school it's the line below which withholding is the default. At a test-required school it's the line below which your score starts working against you.
University | ACT mid-50% | Withhold floor | Policy for 2026/27 |
Johns Hopkins | 35-35 | 35 | Required |
Harvey Mudd | 35-36 | 35 | Optional through 2027 |
Stanford | 34-36 | 34 | Required |
MIT | 34-35 | 34 | Required |
Columbia | 34-35 | 34 | Optional (final cycle; required from 2027-28) |
Penn | 34-35 | 34 | Required |
Duke | 34-35 | 34 | Optional; science section encouraged for STEM |
UChicago | 34-35 | 34 | Optional |
Northwestern | 34-35 | 34 | Optional |
Vanderbilt | 34-35 | 34 | Optional through fall 2028 entry |
Rice | 34-36 | 34 | Optional, scores recommended |
Carnegie Mellon | 34-36 | 34 | Required; some colleges accept AP, IB or A-Level |
Princeton | 34-35 | 34 | Optional (final cycle; required from 2027-28) |
NYU | 34-35 | 34 | Optional |
Harvard | 33-35 | 33 | Required |
WashU | 33-35 | 33 | Optional |
Cornell | 33-35 | 33 | Required |
Williams | 33-35 | 33 | Optional |
Emory | 33-35 | 33 | Optional |
Yale | 33-35 | 33 | Required |
Brown | 33-35 | 33 | Required |
Notre Dame | 33-35 | 33 | Optional (final cycle; required from 2027-28) |
Pomona | 32-34 | 32 | Optional (permanent); ACT must include science |
USC | 32-35 | 32 | Optional |
Dartmouth | 32-35 | 32 | Required |
Georgetown | 32-35 | 32 | Required; science section recommended |
UVA | 32-34 | 32 | Optional |
UNC Chapel Hill | 32-35 | 32 | Conditional (score required below a 2.8 weighted GPA) |
Michigan | 32-34 | 32 | Recommended |
Georgia Tech | 32-35 | 31 | Required |
Florida | 29-33 | 29 | Required; CLT accepted |
Don't read a published range as the bar you have to clear.
A quarter of every class sits below the 25th percentile number, and the numbers are falling as required testing returns and full cohorts enter the data. Harvard shows it happening on the SAT side already, where the submission rate rose from 54% to 79% when the requirement came back and the bottom of the published range dropped 60 points. Expect the same correction on the ACT at newly required schools, which makes today's numbers a high-water mark.
A 35 is the 75th percentile at almost every school here. Two points lower and you're below the floor at nearly half of them.
What ACT score should you aim for?
Work out three numbers for each school on your list. On the ACT they'll usually sit within two or three points of each other.
75th: the target
A 35 at most of the schools above. Hit it and you can stop testing.
50th: working minimum
Inside the conversation, but the rest of the file still has to carry its weight.
Below the withhold floor
Submitting works against you. Hold it back where allowed; offset it where required.
A 34 clears the floor at all but two schools above, a 35 settles almost all, and among the publics the floor drops as far as 29. Testing is also the one piece of your application you can finish before senior year.
When to stop prepping
A 35 and a 36 read the same way to an admissions officer, and both sit in the top 1% nationally. Once you're at your reach school's 75th percentile, there's nothing left for another point to buy. Stop there and spend the hours where they still count.
Your section scores say something about your major
Readers see English, math and reading separately, and the three-section composite makes each line heavier than it was on the four-section test. A weak section now costs you a third of the average where it used to cost a quarter.
If you're applying to engineering, computer science or another quantitative program, a 36 in math alongside a 32 in reading reads very differently from the reverse at the same composite, and the reader weighting your file knows which line matters for the major you've named. Writing-heavy programs invert it. At a test-optional school the balance also affects whether you submit at all, because a composite that clears the floor on the strength of one section can leave open the exact question your file needed to answer.
The optional science section: when to take it
Science left the composite in 2025, and colleges have landed in different places. Pomona requires the section from anyone who submits an ACT, and so does Marquette. GW requires it only of applicants to its seven-year BS/MD program. Georgetown highly recommends it, especially for intended science majors, and Duke encourages it for STEM applicants. Cornell states plainly that it isn't required. Most schools haven't published a position at all. You choose at registration and can't add it afterwards, so check your list before you book a date.
The case for taking it doesn't rest on the requirement. Science reasoning is a direct signal for STEM curricula, and a standalone score shows something a three-section composite can't. If you're applying to engineering or the sciences, the section is close to free upside. If you're not, and nothing on your list asks for it, the shorter test is the better use of your stamina.
SAT or ACT: which should you take?
Take a full-length timed practice test of each and commit to the one where you score higher and feel more natural. The official concordance between the two is a population-level average, and individual students routinely perform differently on each test from what the concordance predicts.
The ACT suits fast workers and students who prefer direct questions and predictable grammar rules, while the SAT suits stronger readers who want more time per question. Math splits the same way, with ACT math broader and faster and SAT math more conceptual. Benchmark both with our free ACT practice tests and free SAT practice tests, and if the SAT wins, our SAT score guide runs this analysis from that side.
Thousands apply. Very few stand out.
See where you stand with a free SAT or ACT practice test
At Harvard, there wasn't a preference for the SAT over the ACT. Both were considered equally. What mattered was the strength of the score in the context of the student's overall application.
Devery D.
Former Harvard Admissions Officer
Does superscoring work the same on the ACT?
The mechanics are friendlier. ACT builds a superscore for you automatically once you've tested more than once, averaging your best English, math and reading across dates. Best scores of 34, 32 and 33 across two test dates come out as a 33 even if neither date produced one on its own.
Acceptance is school-specific. Cornell and Duke both want the ACT-provided superscore and your highest section scores from each date, and Duke builds its own composite from those highs. Carnegie Mellon superscores the SAT and not the ACT. Duke also wants one complete set from a single date, so you can't assemble a file out of sections alone. If your test dates straddle September 2025, send what ACT reports and let each college apply its own policy. A composite you rebuild yourself from one four-section test and one three-section test isn't comparing like with like, and Yale tells applicants not to do it.
Good ACT scores for scholarships, honors and direct-entry programs
Admission isn't the only hurdle your score has to clear, and this matters more on the ACT than the SAT, because the flagship publics with published merit tables have historically written their bands in ACT terms. Where an award runs on a table, a specific composite unlocks a specific dollar amount whatever the admission policy says, which can make one more attempt worth five figures a year. Competitive awards work differently. Vanderbilt's Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholarship names no score, and UNC's Morehead-Cain is explicitly test-optional.
Accelerated and direct-entry programs run their own score rules, and they often do it at schools that are optional for everyone else. GW's Seven-Year BA/MD, Stevens' accelerated tracks, Union's Leadership in Medicine and Tulane's Pathways to Medicine all require scores, and honors colleges at large publics are commonly score-gated with their own funding attached. Work out what the score has to buy before you judge whether it's good enough.
When should you take the ACT, and how many times?
Settle the score early and you buy back months the rest of your application needs.
Sophomore year: take a timed full-length practice ACT and SAT, and commit to the stronger format.
Junior year: prep in a structured way and take your first official ACT in the winter or spring.
Early senior fall: retake once if you're short of your target, before early deadlines close, aiming at your weakest section so the superscore does the work.
Once you clear your reach school's 75th percentile: stop, and put the hours into essays and activities.
Two or three attempts is the norm. ACT reports by test date, so you control which dates most colleges see, though a few ask for all. Fee waivers cover two tests for eligible 11th and 12th graders, including the optional sections and six college score reports, so cost shouldn't cap your score.
You're going to take the exam no more than really three times on average, just because it's not going to budge that much.
Eileen D.
Former UPenn Admissions Officer
Students spend the vast majority of their time studying for tests, doing homework. But all that does is buy you the opportunity not to be excluded from the application pool when you apply to a top school.
Alex O.
Crimson Platinum Strategist
Good ACT scores: FAQs
Is 30 a good ACT score?
Nationally, yes. A 30 ranks 94th, which puts you in the top 6% of test takers. Against the schools in the table above it clears only Florida's floor, since the rest run from 31 to 35. In between those two answers sits a long list of strong universities where a 30 is competitive or settled. Where you're applying decides it.
Is 25 a good ACT score?
A 24 ranks 80th nationally and a 26 ranks 86th, so a 25 sits in the top quarter and well above the mean of 19.1. It's competitive across a wide range of public and private universities and below the floors of most top-50 selective schools. Judge it against each target school's published range and any merit table it might trigger.
What is a good ACT score for the Ivy League?
Floors run from 32 at Dartmouth to 34 at Columbia, Penn and Princeton, and every 75th percentile is a 35. A 34 is competitive across the Ivy League, and a 35 settles testing at every campus.
Should I take the optional science section?
Take it if any school on your list expects it with an ACT submission, or if you're a strong science reasoner applying to STEM programs, where the standalone score works as a differentiator. Skip it if neither applies and put the stamina into the three sections that build your composite. Either way, check each school's policy before you register.
Set your target with Crimson
What counts as a good score for you comes down to your list, your section profile, and whether the number also has to unlock money. Setting that target is your strategist's job. Every Crimson student works with one, building the testing timeline into an application plan that names which test, which dates and what each school actually needs, while former admissions officers and essay mentors shape the parts of the file a score can't carry.
ACT tutoring is there for students who need to move the number, and Crimson ACT students improve their composite by an average of 5 points. In the 2025/26 admissions cycle, Crimson students earned 395 Ivy League acceptances. Book a free consultation with our Ivy League Admissions Consultants and you'll leave knowing what each school on your list expects, and what number is worth stopping at.
