Hi all. I've taken the ACT a few times and my scores on individual sections vary. I recently came across the term 'superscoring.' Can someone help me understand what ACT superscoring means and whether or not colleges typically accept superscores?
ACT superscoring refers to the process where colleges consider your highest score from each individual section across all the times you've taken the ACT. For example, let’s say you’ve taken the ACT twice. On your first test, you scored a 28 in English, 30 in Mathematics, 26 in Reading, and 29 in Science, giving you a composite score of 28.25. On your second test, you scored a 29 in English, 29 in Mathematics, 28 in Reading, and 27 in Science, for a composite score of 28.25 again. But when the schools superscore the ACT, they’ll take the highest scores for each category irrespective of which test they came from. So in this case, they'll consider your scores as 29 in English, 30 in Mathematics, 28 in Reading, and 29 in Science. That gives you a superscored composite of 29, which is higher than the composites from both of your tests.
Whether colleges accept ACT superscores varies from school to school. Many schools do superscore, so if you apply to one of these schools, you have the advantage of submitting your highest scores across multiple testing dates, which can potentially increase your overall score. However, some schools might consider only the highest composite score from a single test date rather than the highest scores from each section across all your tests. It's best to research the specific superscoring policies of the colleges you're interested in to understand how your scores will be evaluated. For instance, certain popular institutions like Yale University, University of Chicago, and Dartmouth College do accept ACT superscores for the 2024-2025 application cycle.
Ultimately, superscoring can indeed be extremely beneficial — it's a chance to present your highest possible scores to colleges, showcasing your academic strengths across multiple testing dates. To take advantage of this, it's crucial you do well on every section of the test across various dates, because you never know which section score will end up being your highest one.
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