University of Kansas ACT Scores: Reading the 20 to 28 Band

The University of Kansas reports an ACT composite middle 50% of 20 to 28, with a reported midpoint of 25. That means 25% of enrolled students who submitted an ACT scored at or below 20, and 75% scored at or below 28, so roughly the top quarter of that group scored above 28. The institution-wide admission rate is 93%, across an undergraduate enrollment of 21,217 in Lawrence, Kansas. Those figures describe enrolled students who submitted a score, not applicants, and no number on this page is a cutoff, a minimum, or a prediction about you.

Six rows of data, and what each row counts

Everything on this page comes from six reported figures in the federal College Scorecard file, which draws on IPEDS. They answer different questions, so read them as a set. Any one of them quoted alone is misleading.

Two facts about the population behind the percentiles do most of the work later. First, they are enrolled students, so anyone who was admitted and chose a different school is not in these numbers. Second, they are students who submitted a score, so the band describes score submitters and nobody else. If a claim about Kansas is not in that table, this data cannot support it, and neither will we.

A band this wide changes the question

The distance from 20 to 28 is eight points. On a 1 to 36 scale, that is a broad middle, and it is the most informative thing Kansas reports. Half of the enrolled score submitters landed somewhere in that eight-point span, and the other half split between those below 20 and those above 28.

Sit with what that does to the usual question. A student practicing at 21 and a student practicing at 27 are six points apart from each other, and both sit inside the same reported middle half. So there is no such thing as "the Kansas ACT score." There is a lower reported edge, an upper reported edge, and a lot of room between them.

Three consequences worth carrying:

• Compare against both edges, not one number. Where you sit relative to 20 and relative to 28 tells you more than your distance from 25.
• A band this wide says enrolled score submitters differed a great deal from one another. It does not say why, and this data carries nothing about how Kansas reads a score.
• Do not treat 20 as a floor. It is a percentile. About a quarter of enrolled score submitters were at or below it, which is the opposite of a minimum.

For the general method behind this kind of reading, see how to read a college ACT range.

Halfway between 20 and 28 is 24, not 25

Do the arithmetic on the reported range and the halfway point comes out at 24. The reported midpoint for Kansas is 25, a point above the center of the range it summarizes.

That small mismatch is a useful reason to stop leaning on the midpoint at all. It is a reported figure, not a median and not an average. It cannot tell you how the enrolled scores sit inside the band. Whether they bunch nearer 20, nearer 28, or spread evenly across the eight points is simply not in this data set, and one number was never going to answer it.

The two percentiles are different, because they have definitions you can state precisely. 20 means a quarter of enrolled score submitters at or below. 28 means three quarters at or below. Those two sentences are checkable. "The midpoint is 25" is a label on a range.

One practical note. If you see the figure 25 described as the average ACT score at Kansas, that is a rewording of the reported midpoint, not an average that this data reports. When you are deciding what to aim at, work from 20 and 28 and treat 25 as a rough marker between them.

The 93% is a ratio, and four things it is not

Ninety-three percent is the institution-wide admission rate: applicants offered admission divided by applicants, every program pooled together, for one reported year. It is high. It is also the number most often misread on pages like this one.

• Not your probability. It is a ratio computed over a past applicant pool. Reading it does not convert it into a personal chance of admission.
• Not a statement about testing requirements. Whether a score is required at Kansas, and how it is treated if submitted, is a policy question that this data set does not contain. The university publishes its own admissions information.
• Not linked to the score band by any formula here. The 93% counts applicants. The 20, 25, and 28 count enrolled students who submitted a score. Two different populations, and you cannot multiply or combine them.
• Not a promise. No page, this one included, can tell you that you will or will not be admitted anywhere.

The honest summary: in the reported year, 93 of every 100 applicants across the institution were offered admission, and the wide 20 to 28 band shows that the score submitters who enrolled varied a lot. Both statements describe a past cycle at a university of 21,217 undergraduates. Neither one forecasts your outcome.

Find your practice composite on the Kansas line

This table does exactly one thing: it places a composite against the three reported Kansas figures. It is placement, not prediction, and it says nothing about admission.

There is one condition on using it. The composite you place has to come from a full timed form, because a section worked without a clock is a different measurement than the same section under one. Take a timed form with our free full-length practice tests, then convert your raw counts with the free ACT score calculator. A composite built that way is worth comparing. A rough estimate from untimed work is not.

The composite averages three scores, so plan in threes

On the Enhanced ACT the composite is the average of three section scores: English, Math, and Reading. Science is optional and is reported separately from the composite. That averaging is the arithmetic you plan around.

Because three scores are averaged, moving the composite up one point means finding three points across those three sections. One on each, or two on one and one on another. A student at 22 who wants to reach the reported midpoint of 25 is looking at nine section points of total movement. From 25 up to 28, the reported 75th percentile edge, is another nine. That is arithmetic, not a promise: nobody can tell you what your gain will be. What it does tell you is where the work lives, which is across three sections rather than the one you like least.

The format, in case you are planning around it:

• English: 50 questions in 35 minutes
• Math: 45 questions in 50 minutes
• Reading: 36 questions in 40 minutes
• Science: optional, 40 questions in 40 minutes, reported separately
• No penalty for a wrong answer, so leave nothing blank

The free side of Prep36 for that work: all 1,026 original practice questions with an instant explanation on every answer, six full-length timed forms with two of them free, the study plan builder, the score forecast, and the Enhanced ACT Cram Kit. Format details in the Enhanced ACT 2025 guide, and tactics in how to improve your ACT score.

Six data points, and the long list of things they do not include

This page was built from six figures. Here is what is not in them, so you do not read it into them by accident:

• Section-level numbers. There is no Kansas English, Math, or Reading figure in this data set. Any page handing you a per-section Kansas target is inventing it.
• Testing policy. Required, optional, considered, and how, are all outside this data.
• Application dates and deadlines.
• Programs and majors, and any admission figure below the institution level. The 93% is institution-wide only.
• Scholarship, aid, or honors thresholds of any kind.
• Trends. This is one reported cohort, not a series, so it cannot show anything moving over time.

One arithmetic warning as well. The 21,217 is total undergraduate enrollment, not the entering class, and the percentiles cover score submitters in the reported cohort. Multiplying the two produces a count of students that means nothing.

If you are considering more than one sitting, how superscoring works covers the mechanics, though whether a given college uses a superscore is policy and is not in this data. Dates are in ACT test dates, method is in how to study for the ACT, and the scale itself is in what ACT scores mean. Prep36 is not affiliated with ACT, Inc. Anything about policy at Kansas belongs to the University of Kansas.

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 20 and a 28 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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