National averages · ACT-tested high school graduates from 2024-2026
What is the average ACT score?
19.1, as published by ACT. But the number most pages stop at hides the more useful one: the median composite is an 18, so an average score actually lands at the 58th percentile — above the middle of the field, not in it. And a 19 is paid by 410 of the 504 colleges whose award charts we have read, which is the part that gets left out entirely.
Mean composite
19.1
Median composite
18
Percentile of the mean
58th
Colleges paying
410
One point above average
15 more colleges, another 5% of the field.
A 20 instead of a 19, same 3.5 GPA. A point near the average is worth several times a point near the top, because this is where the distribution is densest — and the points are specific concepts, not general effort.
Raise my ACT score →Free to start, no card. A projected score for every section and the concepts losing you the most points.
Average ACT score by section
ACT publishes a mean and a standard deviation for every reported column. The percentile column is the one worth reading: it is where each section’s own average sits on its own scale, and it is never the 50th.
| Section | Mean | Std dev | Percentile of mean | In composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Composite | 19.1 | 6.1 | 58th | Yes |
| English | 18.4 | 7 | 54th | Yes |
| Math | 19 | 5.7 | 64th | Yes |
| Reading | 20 | 7.1 | 56th | Yes |
| Science | 19.5 | 5.8 | 60th | No |
| STEM | 19.5 | 5.5 | 64th | No |
Science and STEM are reported but excluded from the composite on the Enhanced ACT. The composite is the average of English, Math and Reading only, which means one weak section now carries a third of it rather than a quarter.
Why 19.1 is not the middle
This is the part that reads like an error and is not.
ACT’s percentile table reports, for each score, the share of test takers who earned that score or lower. At a 19 that share is 58%. So more than half the field scores at or below the average, which can only happen when the mean sits above the median — and it does: the middle student scores an 18, while the arithmetic mean is 19.1.
The cause is the shape of the bottom of the distribution. The composite scale stops at 1 but the bulk of scores sit in the high teens, so there is a long thin tail below the pack and nothing equivalent above it. That tail drags the average up relative to the midpoint.
The practical consequence: scoring exactly average puts you slightly ahead of the middle of the field, and the gap between the average score and the top quarter is smaller than the gap between the average score and the bottom.
What an average score is worth
At a 19 with a 3.5 GPA, from each college's own published award chart. These are the best-known names in the dataset that publish a figure at this score.
| College | State | Published award |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona State | AZ | $13,500/yr |
| Oklahoma State | OK | $7,000/yr |
| Kentucky | KY | $6,500/yr |
| South Carolina | SC | $6,000/yr |
| Ole Miss | MS | $5,000/yr |
| Texas Tech | TX | $1,000/yr |
410 colleges in total publish an award a 19 reaches, 64 of them worth $20,000 a year or more. The widely repeated idea that merit money starts at a 25 is simply not what the published charts say.
See all 410 colleges that pay a 19 →How many questions an average score takes
Scored items only — each section also carries unscored field-test questions that do not count. A 19 composite is the average of the three scored sections.
| Section | Questions | Scored | Minutes | In composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | 50 | 40 | 35 | Yes |
| Math | 45 | 41 | 50 | Yes |
| Reading | 36 | 27 | 40 | Yes |
| Science | 40 | 34 | 40 | No |
Turn a practice raw score into a composite with the Enhanced ACT score calculator, which counts only the scored items.
What these averages will not tell you
- They are national, not per college. Every university publishes its own middle 50% and those run far above the national mean at selective schools — the average ACT score of admitted students somewhere is a different number from the average ACT score.
- The cohort behind the percentile table sat a four-section test. The Enhanced ACT composite averages three sections, so a composite percentile is ACT's current official reference rather than a like-for-like comparison against students who took the same test you did. Section percentiles are unaffected.
- Every scholarship figure assumes a 3.5 GPA. These grids are two-dimensional, so the same ACT score pays differently at a 3.0 and at a 4.0.
- An average is not a target. The useful question is not "am I average" but "which points are reachable", and the answer is specific to which concepts you are missing rather than to where you sit on a national table.
Questions about the average ACT score
What is the average ACT score?
19.1. That is the published mean composite for ACT-tested high school graduates from 2024-2026. The median is an 18, which means a 19 actually sits at the 58th percentile rather than the 50th — the mean is pulled above the middle by a long tail of low scores.
Is a 19 a good ACT score?
It is an average one, and it is not worth nothing. 410 of the 504 colleges whose award charts we have read publish a scholarship that a 19 reaches at a 3.5 GPA, including Arizona State at $13,500 a year. The awards are smaller than at higher scores, but the common claim that merit money starts at a 25 is false.
What are the average ACT scores by section?
English 18.4, Math 19, Reading 20, Science 19.5. Science averages 19.5 but is optional on the Enhanced ACT and no longer counts toward the composite, so it does not pull the average either way.
Why is the average ACT score at the 58th percentile instead of the 50th?
Because the mean and the median are different numbers. ACT's percentile table reports the share of test takers scoring at or below each point, and 58% score a 19 or below. The arithmetic mean is 19.1 while the middle student scores an 18, because a long tail of very low scores drags the average up relative to the midpoint. Scoring "average" therefore puts you slightly above the middle of the field.
What happens if I score one point above average?
A 20 is the 63rd percentile, which clears another 5% of the field, and it reaches 15 more colleges publishing an award — 425 rather than 410. One point near the average does far more than one point near the top, because the distribution is densest in the middle.
Related
Percentiles are the 2026-2027 national table for ACT-tested high school graduates from 2024-2026, published by ACT. Scholarship figures are read from each college’s own published award chart at a 3.5 GPA, across 504 colleges. Counts include only awards a college guarantees at a published threshold. They are not perfectly monotonic: one college's guaranteed band tops out at a 29 and everything it offers above that is competitive, so a 30 reaches one fewer guaranteed award than a 29. A published threshold is not an offer — the financial aid office makes the award.