University of Illinois Chicago ACT Scores: What the 25 to 31 Range Actually Means

At University of Illinois Chicago, the middle 50% of enrolled students who submitted an ACT score landed between a 25 and a 31 composite, and the reported midpoint of that range is a 27. The institution-wide admission rate is 77%, and 22,170 undergraduates are enrolled. Those facts pull in two directions, and the more useful one is the width: six points is a wide band, so there is no single expected score here. This page reads the numbers exactly as reported and shows how to turn them into a target you set yourself.

Start with what the three numbers report

These are the only ACT and admission figures in the federal College Scorecard release for University of Illinois Chicago, drawn from the most recent reported cohort in IPEDS. Nothing on this page goes beyond them.

Two habits keep you out of trouble with a table like this. First, a percentile describes a group and is never a cutoff, a minimum, or a requirement. Nothing here says a 25 is the 25th percentile or a 31 is the ceiling. Second, the composite figures come only from students who enrolled and who submitted an ACT score. They are not applicants, they are not students who were admitted and went elsewhere, and they are not the students who applied without a score.

The 6 point spread is the headline, not the 27

Six points is a wide middle 50% on a 36 point scale. It tells you something specific: the students who enrolled here and reported a score did not cluster tightly around one number. About a quarter of them were at or below a 25, about a quarter were above a 31, and in between sits a broad zone holding half the reporting group.

That width changes how the numbers should be used. At a school with a narrow band of three or four points, the range functions almost as a signal of one expected profile. Here it does not. A 25 and a 31 are both ordinary scores inside this reported distribution. If your practice composite is a 26, you are inside the middle 50% and below the reported midpoint. If it is a 30, you are inside the middle 50% and above the midpoint. Both are real positions, and neither is an outcome.

Width also limits what the data can say. The 25th and 75th percentiles mark the two edges of the middle half and nothing else. The figures do not reveal how far below 25 or how far above 31 the outer quarters reach. Anyone converting these two numbers into a hard floor is adding something the data does not contain.

Reading the 77% admission rate without over-reading it

Seventy seven percent of applicants were offered admission across the institution. That is a number about the university, not about you. It is not a probability attached to your application, it adjusts for nothing in your file, and it says nothing about how any individual part of the university reviews candidates. A rate computed across tens of thousands of files cannot predict a single one of them.

It helps to hold the 77% and the 22,170 undergraduates in view together. This is a large university that admits most of the people who apply, and the ACT band it reports is wide. Those facts are consistent with each other. A big class drawn from a broad academic mix produces a broad score distribution, and a 25 to 31 middle 50% is what that looks like on paper.

One more distinction gets blurred constantly, so it is worth stating plainly. The admission rate is computed from applicants. The ACT percentiles are computed from enrolled students who submitted a score. Two different groups of people, measured at two different stages. You cannot combine them into a chance of getting in. Use the rate to understand the institution's scale and general selectivity. Use the percentiles to understand where a score sits among students already on campus.

Where a given composite sits in this reported range

Because the band is wide, the most useful thing to do with a practice score is locate it. The table below does only that, using the two percentiles and the reported midpoint.

Read the right-hand column literally. Each row describes a position relative to students who already enrolled and submitted a score. No row says you will be admitted, none says you will not be, and none is a target the school has published. If you want a working goal instead of a description, the honest version is a range: moving from below 25 into the 26 to 31 zone puts you inside the middle half, and clearing 31 puts you above three quarters of reporting students. Run your current section scores through the free ACT score calculator to see which composite your practice tests actually produce.

Turning a composite goal into section math

The Enhanced ACT builds the composite from three sections. English is 50 questions in 35 minutes, Math is 45 questions in 50 minutes, and Reading is 36 questions in 40 minutes. Your composite is the average of those three scores. Science is optional, 40 questions in 40 minutes, and it is reported separately rather than folded into the composite. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so a blank is strictly worse than a guess.

Averages plan more easily than they look. A 27 composite means English, Math, and Reading sum to 81. A 31 means they sum to 93. Those totals are reachable through many mixes: 27, 27, 27 gets to 81, and so does 30, 26, 25. That flexibility matters when one section is far ahead of the others, because lifting your weakest section by three points moves the composite by one, and so does spreading a three point gain across all three.

One caution specific to this page. The data behind these percentiles is composite only. There are no English, Math, or Reading figures reported for University of Illinois Chicago, so any section-level target you see attributed to this school is invented. Choose your own section mix from your own practice results. The Enhanced ACT 2025 guide walks through the format in full.

A study plan sized to the move you actually need

The practical question is not what score this school wants, because the data does not say. It is how many composite points you can move from where you are, and how much calendar you have to move them. A one or two point move is largely a matter of timing and disciplined review. A five or six point move is a longer project that needs a real schedule.

Everything needed to start is free on Prep36. The full bank of 1,026 original practice questions is free, and every answer carries an instant explanation, so a missed question becomes a diagnosis instead of a tally. There are 6 full-length timed test forms and 2 of them are free, which is enough for an honest baseline plus one measured retest under timed conditions. The free study plan builder turns your test date and baseline into a weekly schedule, and the free score forecast projects where your current pace lands. The free Enhanced ACT Cram Kit is the compressed version for anyone working in weeks rather than months.

For method rather than materials, start with how to study for the ACT, then how to improve your ACT score. Take a full ACT practice test before setting any goal, check test dates so you can count backward, and read how superscoring works before planning a second sitting.

What this data cannot tell you

Being clear about the gaps is part of using the numbers well.

• The percentiles cover enrolled students who submitted an ACT score. Anyone who enrolled without submitting one is absent from the figure, so the group is self-selected.
• The 27 is reported midpoint of the reported range, not a verified midpoint of the reported range. Treat it as the center of the band and nothing stronger.
• There is no section-level data. English, Math, and Reading targets for this school do not exist in this data set.
• This release does not include testing policy. Whether a score is required, optional, or helpful for a particular application is a question for the university's own admissions office, and it is worth asking directly.
• These figures are one reported cohort. They are not a trend line and not a forecast of a future class.
• The 77% rate is institution-wide and computed from applicants. It is not a personal probability and not a rate for any single program.

What survives all of those caveats is still worth having. Half of the reporting students at University of Illinois Chicago landed between a 25 and a 31, the reported center is a 27, and the university admits most applicants at a scale of 22,170 undergraduates. That is enough to set an honest personal target, and enough to recognize when a claim about this school's ACT expectations has run past the evidence. For wider context on how composite scores work, see the ACT scores guide and college ACT score ranges. Prep36 is not affiliated with ACT, Inc.

What these composites cost in raw questions

A composite is not a number you score directly. On the Enhanced ACT it is the average of English, Math and Reading, so reaching one means hitting that scaled score across three sections. Science is optional and reported separately, so it is left out here.

Below is what each scaled score actually costs in correct answers, and how many questions you can afford to miss to still land on it.

Read this correctly. These are not section targets for this school. The College Scorecard reports composite percentiles only, with no section-level data, so nobody can tell you what English or Math score this school expects. What the table shows is the raw cost of a 25 and a 31 in each section, whoever you are aiming at. Build your own section goals from your own practice results.

Turn your practice raw scores into a composite with the free ACT score calculator, then drill the sections costing you the most in the free question bank.

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