Average ACT scores are down this year. ACT officials attribute the drop to the increasing percentage of high school seniors who have taken the test.
The average composite score for those who graduated from high school this year was 20.8, down 0.2 points from last year and representing a five-year low. (The highest possible score on each part of the ACT is 36, and the composite is an average of the four scores.) ACT data show that 64 percent of high school seniors in the Class of 2016 took the ACT this year, up from 59 percent last year and 52 percent in 2012. Generally, when a larger share of students take a test -- in some cases encouraged by state requirements more than the students necessarily being college ready -- scores go down. Score drops were the largest in states that have just started to require all students to take the ACT.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/24/average-act-scores-drop-more-people-take-test