What Is a Good ACT Score for Your College List?

There is no universal "good" ACT score. A 25 puts you above most test-takers nationally but may sit below the middle half of admitted students at a highly selective college. A 22 can be competitive at many regional public universities. The right way to judge your score is to stack it against the specific list of schools you are considering — and to understand the selection bias hiding in many published ranges.

What the national percentiles say

National percentiles show where your composite stands among ACT-tested graduates. For the 2026–2027 reporting year (scores from September 2026 through August 2027, based on graduates from 2024–2026), ACT publishes the following anchors:

Those percentiles are useful context, not targets. A 30 is stronger than roughly 94% of ACT-tested graduates, but that does not by itself mean it is "enough" for any particular institution. For how the composite is calculated, see our guide to enhanced ACT scoring and superscoring.

Why "good" depends on your list

Colleges do not admit students in order of national percentile. They build a class from the pool that applies to them, which means the same score can be above average, in the middle, or below range depending on the school.

• Reach schools may have most admitted students in the top 10% nationally. A score in their middle 50% keeps you academically viable; below it makes the academic bar harder to clear unless the rest of your application is unusually strong.
• Match schools usually admit many students whose scores fall near their published middle 50%.
• Likely/safety schools often admit a meaningful share of students below their middle 50%, especially if other parts of the application are solid.

Start by building your list honestly. Then look up each school's own numbers rather than relying on third-party aggregators, which can be stale or mislabeled.

How to find a school's real range

The best sources are the institution's own publications. Search for two things:

1. Common Data Set (CDS). Look for Section C9 or the standardized-test tables. CDS files are usually posted by the admissions or institutional research office.
2. First-year class profile / admitted-student profile. Admissions offices often publish a one-page summary with the middle 50% GPA, SAT, and ACT for the most recent entering class.

Pay attention to the wording. "Middle 50% of admitted students" and "middle 50% of enrolled students" are slightly different pools. Admitted-student ranges can be a little higher because some high-scoring admitted students choose to attend elsewhere; enrolled-student ranges reflect who actually showed up. Both are useful, but do not mix them without noting the difference.

Here are three examples we verified directly from each institution's own page on October 1, 2026:

Selection bias and test-optional reporting

Most published ACT ranges come with an important caveat: they reflect only the scores that applicants chose to submit. Under test-optional policies, students with lower scores often keep them out of their applications. That means the reported middle 50% is usually higher than the range you would see if every applicant had submitted a score.

What this means for you:

• A score at the lower end of a school's middle 50% is not a cutoff. It means 25% of enrolled or admitted students had a score at or below that number.
• If a school is test-optional, treat the middle 50% as a self-selected range, not the whole pool. Lower scores were likely underrepresented in the data.
• Some schools still require or strongly recommend scores for certain majors, honors programs, or scholarships. Check the specific program, not just the university-wide range.

Use the published range as one data point in a broader decision, not as a hard rule. Your coursework, GPA, essays, recommendations, and other factors also matter — often more than a single test score.

Set your target from your list

Once you have your current composite from an official practice test or a real administration, compare it to each school. The simplest worksheet looks like this:

If your current score is below the middle 50% of most of your list, you have a clear target. A one-to-two-point gain often moves you from below range to competitive. If you are already inside the middle 50% of your target schools, additional points may help less than spending time on essays, coursework, or other parts of your application.

For practice, use a current official enhanced-format form with its matching scoring key — not a percentage from a short quiz. Our free ACT practice sampler can help you identify weak sections, and the ACT study plan shows how to schedule full-length official tests before your registration deadline.

Bottom line: a good ACT score is one that keeps you competitive at the schools you actually want to attend. Start with the national norms for context, then build your target from each institution's own middle-50% range — and remember that those ranges describe submitted scores, not the entire applicant pool.

All facts in this article were verified against ACT's official publications on October 1–2, 2026.