Composite scores 1–36 mapped to national percentile rank and rarity, based on official ACT National Ranks. Want to see how your ACT score stacks up on the IQ scale? Try our SAT/ACT to IQ conversion tool.
ACT Composite Score
National Percentile
Rarity
36Perfect Score
100th
~1 in 700*
35
99th
1 in 100
34
99th
1 in 100
33Ivy League Range
98th
1 in 50
32
97th
1 in 33
31
96th
1 in 25
30Top 6% Nationally
94th
1 in 17
29
92nd
1 in 13
28
91st
1 in 11
27Well Above Average
88th
1 in 8.3
26
86th
1 in 7.1
25
83rd
1 in 5.9
24College-Ready Benchmark Range
80th
1 in 5.0
23
76th
1 in 4.2
22
72nd
1 in 3.6
21Slightly Above Average
68th
1 in 3.1
20
63rd
1 in 2.7
19National Average (19.4)
57th
1 in 2.3
18
52nd
1 in 2.1
17
46th
1 in 2.2
16Below Average
40th
1 in 2.5
15
34th
1 in 2.9
14
27th
1 in 3.7
13Bottom Quartile
20th
1 in 5.0
12
12th
1 in 8.3
11
5th
1 in 20
10Rarely Seen (Low End)
2nd
1 in 50
9
1st
<1 in 100
8
1st
<1 in 100
7
1st
<1 in 100
6
1st
<1 in 100
5
1st
<1 in 100
4
1st
<1 in 100
3
1st
<1 in 100
2
1st
<1 in 100
1
1st
<1 in 100
Understanding the ACT Percentile Data
The chart above uses ACT's official National Ranks, published for test-takers from the graduating classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025. Unlike a purely theoretical scale, these percentiles come directly from how real students actually performed — the ACT composite scale is not a perfect bell curve, so ranks are reported as observed data rather than calculated from a normal distribution formula.
Composite vs. Section Percentiles
Your Composite score is the rounded average of your English, Math, Reading, and Science section scores. Each section has its own percentile distribution, so a Composite score of 27 does not necessarily mean every section score of 27 carries the same percentile — a 27 in Math (91st percentile) is rarer than a 27 in Reading (83rd percentile), for example, because sections differ in difficulty and score spread.
What Does "National Percentile" Actually Mean?
A national percentile shows the percentage of recent ACT-tested high school graduates who scored at or below your score. A Composite of 24 sits at the 80th percentile, meaning you scored the same as or better than 80% of test-takers. It does not mean you answered 80% of questions correctly — percentile and raw accuracy are two different measures.
Rarity (1 in X)
Rarity converts the percentile into a tangible number by looking at whichever tail of the distribution your score falls in. A rarity of "1 in 17" (Composite 30) means that, statistically, you'd be the top scorer in a typical group of 17 test-takers. At the very top of the scale, ACT rounds the 34–36 range to 99th–100th percentile, so the rarity for a perfect 36 shown above is an estimate drawn from independent test-prep analyses of ACT's raw score-count data rather than ACT's own rounded percentile table.
Methodology:
Percentiles are ACT's official National Ranks for the 2025–2026 reporting year (used for tests taken September 2025 through August 2026), based on ACT-tested high school graduates of 2023, 2024, and 2025. Composite mean = 19.2, SD = 6.1. Rarity figures for scores 10–35 are derived directly from these published ranks. *The rarity estimate for a Composite of 36 is approximate, since ACT rounds its own reporting to 99th–100th percentile at the top of the scale; independent analyses of ACT's national score-count data have placed a perfect 36 at roughly 0.1–0.2% of test-takers in recent years, which this chart rounds to approximately 1 in 700.
