ACT Score Percentiles Explained (2026)

Written by Alan Hair, Founder, Bridgepath AI Solutions · Updated July 29, 2026

An ACT percentile, which ACT prints on your score report as your "US Rank," is the percentage of recent ACT-tested graduates who scored at or below your score. The full official table is below. The headline number: the average Composite is 19.2, and a Composite of 19 ranks at about the 57th percentile. Every figure on this page is ACT's own, not a third-party estimate.

What an ACT percentile actually means

Your percentile compares your score to other students, not to the questions. ACT puts it this way: your national rank tells you "the percentage of students who scored at or below a given score." So a US Rank of 83 means you scored as high as or higher than 83% of recent test takers, and only 17% scored higher.

Two things that trip people up:

• It is not your percent correct. Getting 83% of the questions right and landing in the 83rd percentile are unrelated. The percentile is purely your standing in the pack.
• It is a national rank, not a college admit rate. Your percentile tells you where you sit nationally. Whether a score is "good" for a specific college is a separate question, answered by that school's published range, not by the national table. More on that split below.

The official ACT percentile table (2025–2026)

This is ACT's published National Ranks table, the same numbers reported as your "US Rank" on score reports for tests taken September 2025 through August 2026. Find your score in the left column; read across for the percentile of the Composite and each section.

Source: ACT, Inc., ACT Score National Ranks, 2025–2026 reporting year (reported as "US Rank" on score reports for tests taken September 2025 through August 2026). Ranks are based on ACT-tested high school graduates of 2023, 2024, and 2025. A Composite of 10 ranks at the 2nd percentile; 9 and below at the 1st. ACT also reports a STEM rank (Math and Science combined), not shown here.

How to read your own rank

Pick the row for your score, then subtract from 100 to see how many students scored above you. Worked examples, all from the Composite column:

• Composite 30 → US Rank 94. You beat 94% of test takers; about 6% scored higher. This is solidly into "top tier nationally" territory.
• Composite 25 → US Rank 83. Top ~17% of the country. Well above average, and a real, common target for selective-but-not-elite schools.
• Composite 20 → US Rank 63. Above the national average, beating roughly two-thirds of test takers.

Notice the curve is steepest in the middle. Between a 16 (40th) and a 24 (80th), a single point can move you several percentile places, because that is where most students cluster. Up at the top a point is worth less in percentile terms (a 34 and a 36 are both the 99th–100th), but those are the points colleges notice most. Where you are on the curve tells you how much a few more points actually buys you.

The average is 19.2, but that is not the 50th percentile

ACT's official mean Composite is 19.2 (standard deviation 6.1). It is tempting to assume the average score sits at the 50th percentile, but it does not, and the table shows why.

• A Composite of 19 is the 57th percentile, not the 50th.
• The true midpoint, the 50th percentile, is about an 18 (a Composite of 18 is the 52nd percentile; a 17 is the 46th).

The gap exists because the score distribution leans right: a band of very high scorers pulls the average up above the median. The practical takeaway is encouraging. A score at or just below the national average already places you ahead of roughly half of all test takers. "Average" on the ACT is not the middle of nowhere; it is the actual middle of a large, motivated pack.

What these percentiles are based on

Read the fine print, because most sites skip it. ACT's 2025–2026 ranks are based on the high-school graduating classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025. ACT reports these as your "US Rank" for any test taken from September 2025 through August 2026, no matter which sections you sit.

That matters because of the format change. On the enhanced ACT, your Composite is now the average of English, Math, and Reading only, and Science is optional and scored separately. The reference group behind the current table testing largely on the earlier format, so treat the table as ACT's official current rank, refreshed each reporting year as new data accumulates. It is the number ACT actually prints on your report. It is not a recalculated, brand-new enhanced-format norm, and any site claiming a different "2026 percentile chart" is guessing. Always read the date and the source on a percentile table; we put both directly under ours.

Percentiles vs. a "good score for your colleges"

A percentile answers "where do I stand nationally?" It does not answer "is this score good enough for my list?" Those are different questions, and only one of them gets you admitted.

Colleges admit against their own applicant pool, not the national pool. A score at the 80th percentile nationally can be below the median at a highly selective school and well above it at most others. So use your percentile for context and motivation, then set your actual target from each school's published middle-50% range. The full method is in what's a good ACT score?, and if you are weighing a retake, see how ACT superscoring works.

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