ACT scale · 1 to 36
What is the highest ACT score?
36. Every section is scored 1 to 36 and the composite is their average, so 36 is the ceiling for both and there is nothing above it. The more interesting answer is that a 36 no longer needs a perfect test: 107 or 108 points out of 108 both round to a 36 on the Enhanced ACT, because the composite now averages 3 sections instead of four.
Highest score
36
Percentile
100th
Points needed
107/108
Colleges paying
480
One dropped point is the whole margin
At the top of the scale, every question is the question.
A 107 rounds to a 36 and a 106 does not. Finding the two or three concepts still costing you a point is a different job from general practice.
Find my last few points →The 2 ways to score a 36
The composite is the mean of English, Math and Reading, and that mean rounds half up. So the question is not “can you answer everything correctly” but “does your total reach 107”.
| English | Math | Reading | Total | Composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | 36 | 36 | 108 | 36 |
| 35 | 36 | 36 | 107 | 36 |
| 36 | 35 | 36 | 107 | 36 |
| 36 | 36 | 35 | 107 | 36 |
A 107 rounds to 36 and a 106 does not, so exactly one dropped section point survives. Two does not. Science is optional and sits outside the composite, so a Science score cannot rescue a composite and cannot damage one either.
How many questions that is
Scored items only — each section also carries unscored field-test questions that look identical and count for nothing. A 36 section score does not always require every scored item.
| Section | Questions | Scored | Unscored | Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | 50 | 40 | 10 | 35 |
| Math | 45 | 41 | 4 | 50 |
| Reading | 36 | 27 | 9 | 40 |
Work out exactly which raw scores reach a 36 in each section with the Enhanced ACT score calculator, which uses the official raw-to-scaled tables.
A 36 is worth almost nothing over a 33 in automatic merit
This is the opposite of what the question usually assumes, and it is what the published charts say.
| ACT | Percentile | Colleges paying | $20k+/yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 93rd | 477 | 77 |
| 33 | 98th | 478 | 81 |
| 36 | 100th | 480 | 82 |
2 more colleges publish an award at a 36 than at a 33, out of 504. Automatic merit grids top out well below a perfect score — most of them stop stepping somewhere between a 30 and a 32 — so the scholarship money is won in the twenties and early thirties, not at the ceiling.
What a 36 does change is admission at the universities that reject nine in ten applicants, and eligibility for competitive named scholarships, which are awarded by a committee reading an application rather than from a published grid. Those are real and they are not what this dataset measures.
The practical reading: if the goal is money, the points worth chasing are lower than you think. If the goal is a specific selective university, the ceiling is the point.
Why a 35 and a 36 look the same on a percentile chart
And why that is a limitation of the chart rather than a fact about the scores.
| ACT | Percentile | Colleges paying |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | 98th | 478 |
| 34 | 99th | 478 |
| 35 | 99th | 478 |
| 36 | 100th | 480 |
ACT’s table rounds to whole percents, and the top of the distribution is thin, so three very different results compress into one or two percentile points. A full percentile chart is the right tool for the middle of the scale and a blunt one at the top.
What this page does not claim
- How many students earn a 36. ACT reports it in its annual national profile; we have not verified that figure against the source, so we do not repeat one. The percentile table cannot answer it either — it rounds to whole percents, which hides the count entirely.
- That a 36 is reachable from any starting point. It is the 100th percentile, and the honest reading of the table is that the gap from a 33 to a 36 is a different kind of work from the gap from a 24 to a 27.
- 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.
- That automatic merit is the whole picture. Competitive and named scholarships at these colleges are often larger than anything on a published grid, and a perfect score matters much more to those. They are awarded by committee and are not in this dataset.
Questions about the highest ACT score
What is the highest ACT score you can get?
36. Each section is scored 1 to 36 and the composite is the average of the scored sections, so 36 is both the highest section score and the highest composite. There is no bonus scale above it and no way to score higher.
Do you need a perfect test to get a 36?
No, and this changed with the Enhanced ACT. The composite is now the average of 3 sections — English, Math and Reading — and that average rounds half up. The totals that produce a 36 are 107 and 108 out of 108, so you can lose 1 point across the three sections and still report a 36. Under the old four-section composite the arithmetic was different.
What percentile is a 36 on the ACT?
The 100th. Worth knowing that the table compresses at the top: a 35 reports the 99th percentile and a 34 the 99th, so the three highest scores are barely distinguishable on a percentile chart even though they are not the same result to an admissions office.
Is a 36 worth more scholarship money than a 33?
Barely, in automatic merit. 480 of the 504 colleges whose award charts we have read publish an award at a 36 with a 3.5 GPA, against 478 at a 33 — a difference of 2. Published merit grids top out well below a perfect score, so the money is won between roughly a 24 and a 32. A 36 matters for admission at the most selective universities and for competitive named scholarships, which are awarded by committee rather than from a grid.
How many students get a 36 on the ACT?
We do not publish a figure for this. ACT reports it in its own annual national profile and we have not verified that number against the source, so quoting one here would mean passing on somebody else's transcription. The percentile table cannot answer it either: it rounds to whole percents, so both 35 and 36 report 99 or 100 and the count of perfect scores is invisible in it.
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.