College ACT Scores: Middle 50% Ranges and How to Set Your Target

Almost every student who searches for a college's ACT scores is really asking one question: what number should I be aiming for. This hub gives you both halves of the answer. Each college page below shows the ACT middle 50% that school reported for its most recent enrolled class, plus its overall admission rate, enrollment size, and whether it is public or private. This page teaches you how to read those numbers without fooling yourself, how test-optional policies change what they are worth, and how to work backwards from a target score to a study plan you can actually run before your test date.

How to use a school's ACT band

What these numbers are, and what they are not

The score data on every college page comes from the US Department of Education's College Scorecard, which draws its ACT figures from IPEDS, the federal survey that colleges themselves fill out. Three numbers are reported per school: the ACT composite at the 25th percentile, the midpoint, and the 75th percentile for enrolled students in the most recent reported cohort.

Read that phrase carefully, because it does most of the work. These are scores of students who enrolled. They are not a bar the school set, not a minimum, and not a cutoff. Colleges in this data set do not publish a required ACT score, and every year students are admitted with scores below a school's 25th percentile and turned away with scores above its 75th. A test score is one factor in a file that also holds your transcript, course rigor, essays, recommendations, and everything else you have done.

A few more limits worth knowing before you lean on any of it:

• Section scores are not available. English, Math, and Reading percentiles are blank for every school in this data set, so no page here will show you a school's section targets. If a site claims to know the English score a college wants, it is guessing.
• The admission rate is institutional. An overall rate of 0.30 means roughly 30 of every 100 applicants were admitted across the entire applicant pool. It is not your personal probability. It does not break out your major, your residency, early versus regular decision, or your particular application.
• The cohort is a snapshot. Figures reflect the most recent year each school reported and they move from year to year. Treat them as the shape of a class, not a fixed line.
• Reported ranges usually cover submitters only. When a school is test-optional, the students who choose to send scores tend to be the ones with strong scores, so the published range can sit higher than the class as a whole.

How to read a middle 50%

Percentiles get stated backwards constantly, so here is the plain version. Suppose a school reports a 25th percentile of 27, a midpoint of 30, and a 75th percentile of 32. Those are illustrative numbers, not any real school's.

• 25th percentile of 27: 25% of those enrolled students scored 27 or below, which means about 75% of them scored above 27.
• Midpoint of 30: a 30 sits in the middle of that class. It is neither a standout nor a red flag on this one measure.
• 75th percentile of 32: 75% of those students scored 32 or below, so about 25% scored above 32. Score above the 75th and you are in roughly the top quarter of enrolled students on the ACT.
• Middle 50%: the span between the two, 27 to 32 here. Half the class landed inside it, a quarter below, a quarter above.

The useful takeaway is directional, not deterministic. Inside the range, your score reads as normal for that school and the rest of your application does the talking. Above the 75th, your score is a strength. Below the 25th, your score is the part of your file that needs help from the other parts, or a reason to think about whether to submit at all. Our guide to how ACT scores work covers the 1 to 36 scale and national percentiles in more depth.

Turning a school's range into one target score

Do not set a target off a single school. Build the list first, then let the list pick the number.

1. Write down 6 to 10 schools you are seriously considering, from reaches to safeties.
2. Open each college page and copy the three numbers: 25th, midpoint, 75th.
3. Find the highest 75th percentile on your list. That is your ambitious target, the score that would be a strength almost everywhere you apply.
4. Find the highest midpoint on your list. That is your solid target, the score that reads as unremarkable at even your most competitive option.
5. Pick one number to train toward. One target, not ten. It sets the pace of everything that follows.

If the gap between where you are now and the highest 75th on your list is enormous, the fix is not to fake a bigger goal. Aim at the highest midpoint first, hit it, then re-aim. If you are already near the top of every range on your list, the marginal ACT point is worth less to you than the essays are, and chasing the last few points becomes a choice about scholarships and honors programs rather than admission.

Section scores: the split is your call, not the school's data

On the Enhanced ACT, your composite is the average of English, Math, and Reading. English is 50 questions in 35 minutes, Math is 45 questions in 50 minutes with four answer choices, Reading is 36 questions in 40 minutes, and Science is optional at 40 questions in 40 minutes and reported separately. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so never leave a bubble empty.

Because no school in this data set reports section-level ACT scores, nobody can tell you the English or Math number a given college is looking for. That means the split is a decision you make about your own study time, not a target published by a school. The arithmetic is simple: a composite near 30 means English, Math, and Reading add up to about 90 in whatever combination you can get there. A 32, 28, 30 averages to 30 exactly as a flat 30, 30, 30 does.

So put the hours where points are cheapest for you right now, which is usually the section with the most careless misses rather than the section you dislike most. Drill by section with English practice, Math practice, and Reading practice, then confirm the composite math with the free ACT score calculator.

Test-optional and test-blind change the math

Many US colleges are now test-optional, and some are test-blind. Policies also change from one application year to the next, and Prep36 does not track them, so confirm the policy for your application year on the college's own admissions page before you decide anything.

What each label means in practice:

• Test-optional: you choose whether to send scores. A reasonable way to weigh it is against the school's own range. At or above the midpoint, a score generally strengthens the file. Well below the 25th, submitting adds a weak data point to an application that could stand without it. This is a judgment call about one piece of evidence, not a rule, and it is worth talking through with your counselor.
• Test-blind: scores are not considered in the admission decision at all. Sending them changes nothing for admission at that school.

Even at test-optional and test-blind schools, a score can still matter elsewhere: merit scholarships, honors colleges, state or system-wide programs, NCAA eligibility, and course placement often keep using scores after admissions has stopped. That is why a target score is still worth setting even when your list leans test-optional. And if several schools on your list superscore, your best section results across sittings may combine, which affects how many test dates you plan rather than how hard any single sitting has to go.

Working backwards from your target to a study plan

Once you have one target number and a test date, the plan is arithmetic plus calendar. Here is the sequence, using the free tools.

1. Get an honest baseline. Sit one full-length timed form under real conditions, or answer at least 8 questions each in English, Math, and Reading to unlock the free score forecast. A baseline from untimed, distracted practice will lie to you.
2. Subtract. Target minus baseline is your gap. Write it down as a number.
3. Count the weeks. Check ACT test dates and count the actual weeks left, minus the ones you know will be lost to finals, travel, or your season.
4. Build the schedule. Enter your test date and target score in the free study plan builder and let it lay out the weeks. How to study for the ACT covers what a good week looks like inside that plan.
5. Spend most of your time on questions, not videos. Work the question bank and read the explanation on every item you miss, and on every item you got right by luck. That habit is the engine of score improvement.
6. Re-test on a timed form. Every few weeks, take a full practice test to see whether the gains survive the clock.
7. Re-check the target. Your college list will change between now and application season. When it does, pull the new numbers from these pages and re-aim.

No honest guide can promise you a specific gain. How far you move depends on your starting point, the number of weeks you actually have, and how consistently you review your mistakes. What a plan does is make the work measurable instead of vague.

The free tools you will use here

Prep36 is free-first, and the parts you need for the workflow above cost nothing:

• The entire question bank is free. All 1,026 original practice questions, with an instant explanation on every answer. These are Prep36 questions written for the Enhanced ACT format, not official ACT questions.
• Free full-length timed tests. There are 6 full-length timed forms. Two are free. The other four are in Plus at $14 per month.
• Free score forecast once you have answered at least 8 questions each in English, Math, and Reading.
• Free study plan builder. Enter your test date and target score, get a week-by-week plan.
• Free ACT score calculator to turn raw correct answers into an estimated composite.
• Free Enhanced ACT Cram Kit at /cram-kit, unlocked with your email right on the page. No email is ever sent to you.

If you want the full breakdown of what is free and what sits behind Plus, see is Prep36 free. Prep36 is not affiliated with ACT, Inc.

Where the data comes from

All college figures on these pages come from the US Department of Education College Scorecard, which sources its ACT and enrollment data from IPEDS. Values reflect the most recent cohort each institution reported and can change when new data is published. Section-level ACT scores are not reported in this data set, so they do not appear anywhere on these pages. Always verify current admission requirements, testing policy, and deadlines on the college's own website before you make a decision.

The 48 colleges covered so far

Every college below has its own page with the same four things: the ACT middle 50% and midpoint for its most recent reported class, the overall admission rate, undergraduate enrollment, and whether the school is public, private nonprofit, or private for-profit. The fastest way to use this index is to open the pages for the 6 to 10 schools on your list, copy the three score numbers from each, and set one target from the highest 75th percentile you find. A school appears here only if it reported ACT data for the most recent cohort, so a missing name usually means the school did not report scores, not that scores are irrelevant there. Check any school's current testing policy on its own admissions site, since test-optional and test-blind status can change between application years.

College	State	ACT middle 50%	Midpoint	Admission rate
Brigham Young University	UT	28 to 32	29	68%
Brigham Young University-Idaho	ID	20 to 26	23	96%
Clemson University	SC	28 to 32	30	38%
Florida International University	FL	21 to 27	24	55%
Indiana University-Bloomington	IN	27 to 33	29	78%
Iowa State University	IA	21 to 28	25	89%
Kennesaw State University	GA	19 to 26	23	69%
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College	LA	24 to 30	26	73%
Michigan State University	MI	25 to 31	26	85%
New York University	NY	34 to 35	34	9%
North Carolina State University at Raleigh	NC	28 to 32	30	42%
Ohio State University	OH	28 to 32	29	61%
Oklahoma State University	OK	20 to 27	24	75%
Oregon State University	OR	24 to 31	25	77%
Purdue University	IN	27 to 34	30	50%
Rutgers University-New Brunswick	NJ	28 to 33	30	58%
Texas A&M University-College Station	TX	25 to 31	28	57%
University of Alabama	AL	24 to 31	26	77%
University of Arizona	AZ	21 to 29	25	86%
University of Arkansas	AR	21 to 28	25	74%
University of Central Florida	FL	25 to 29	28	40%
University of Cincinnati	OH	24 to 29	27	85%
University of Colorado Boulder	CO	29 to 33	28	78%
University of Connecticut	CT	28 to 33	30	52%
University of Delaware	DE	28 to 32	29	71%
University of Florida	FL	29 to 33	31	24%
University of Georgia	GA	29 to 34	31	38%
University of Houston	TX	23 to 29	26	74%
University of Illinois Chicago	IL	25 to 31	27	77%
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	IL	30 to 34	32	42%
University of Iowa	IA	21 to 28	26	84%
University of Kansas	KS	20 to 28	25	93%
University of Kentucky	KY	21 to 28	26	93%
University of Maryland-College Park	MD	32 to 35	32	45%
University of Massachusetts-Amherst	MA	30 to 33	31	60%
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities	MN	26 to 31	30	80%
University of Mississippi	MS	21 to 29	25	97%
University of Missouri-Columbia	MO	23 to 30	27	78%
University of Nebraska-Lincoln	NE	22 to 28	25	87%
University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus	OK	23 to 29	26	77%
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus	PA	29 to 33	31	58%
University of South Carolina-Columbia	SC	26 to 32	29	60%
University of Southern California	CA	32 to 35	34	10%
University of Tennessee-Knoxville	TN	25 to 31	28	42%
University of Texas at Austin	TX	27 to 33	30	27%
University of Wisconsin-Madison	WI	29 to 33	29	45%
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	VA	28 to 32	29	55%
West Virginia University	WV	20 to 26	24	89%

More colleges are being added. Every figure comes from the US Department of Education College Scorecard, most recent reported cohort, and each percentile describes enrolled students who submitted an ACT rather than any admission requirement.