Which Colleges Superscore the ACT?

One of the most confusing steps in applying to college can be simply figuring out each college’s exam policy. Some only want your highest score from a single sitting. Others want all of your scores. Then, there’s this thing called superscoring.

What is a Superscore?

So, what is an ACT superscore, anyway? An important value in college admissions, superscores refer to the average of your highest individual section scores on different testing dates. For the ACT, this means colleges will take the highest scores from each of the four categories (English, Math, Science, and Reading) and average them together to get a new composite. Generally, a student’s superscore is higher than the composite score they earned on any one ACT exam. 

Schools that currently superscore the ACT

While not all colleges practice this, the good news is that many do. Below, we’ve assembled a list of the schools that currently superscore the ACT. This list is constantly changing, so be sure to double-check the policies of the schools on your list.

Amherst College

Augusta University

Babson College

Baldwin Wallace University

Barnard College

Baylor University

Bentley University

Boston College

Boston University

Bowdoin College

Butler University

Capital University

Carroll University

Case Western Reserve University

Catawba College

Cedarville University

Centre College

Christopher Newport University

Claremont McKenna College

Clemson University

Coker College

Colby College

College of Charleston

College of St. Benedict

College of William & Mary

College of Wooster

Colorado College

Colorado State University

Columbia University

Concordia College (Minnesota)

Cooper Union

Creighton University

Davidson College

Duke University

Duquesne University

East Georgia State College

Florida State University

Fordham University

Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Georgia College

Georgia Institute of Technology

Grinnell College

Hamilton College

Haverford College

Illinois State University

Indiana University Bloomington

John Carroll University

Johns Hopkins University

Kean University

Kenyon College

Lebanon Valley College

Lehigh University

Lewis & Clark College

Liberty University

Loyola University Chicago

Mansfield University of Pennsylvania

Marquette University

Marshall University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Miami University

Middlebury College

North Carolina State University

Northwestern University

Northwest Missouri State University

Occidental College

Ohio Wesleyan University

Pepperdine University

Point Loma Nazarene University

Pomona College

Rhodes College

Rice University

Roger Williams University

Rowan University

Samford University

Savannah State University

Scripps College

Seattle Pacific University

Seattle University

Seton Hall University

Sewanee: The University of the South

Shenandoah University

Shorter University

Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania

Southeast Missouri State University

Stanford University

St. Anselm College

St. Bonaventure University

St. Mary’s University, Texas

St. Olaf College

State University of New York at Oswego

Stevenson University

Stockton University

SUNY – College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Swarthmore College

Syracuse University

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University–Commerce

Texas Christian University

Texas Wesleyan University

The Ohio State University

The State University of New York at Binghamton

The State University of New York at Buffalo

The State University of New York at Geneseo

Trinity University

Tufts University

Tulane University

United States Merchant Marine Academy

United States Military Academy

United States Naval Academy | Navy

University of California, Berkeley

University of Central Arkansas

University of Chicago

University of Colorado Boulder

University of Connecticut

University of Dayton

University of Maryland, College Park

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

University of North Carolina at Wilmington

University of Northern Colorado

University of Notre Dame

University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

University of Portland

University of Redlands

University of Rochester

University of Saint Joseph

University of San Francisco

University of South Florida

University of Tampa

University of Tennessee

University of the Pacific

University of the Sciences

University of Tulsa

University of Vermont

University of Virginia

University of Washington

Ursuline College

Valparaiso University

Vanderbilt University

Vassar College

Villanova University

Virginia Military Institute

Virginia State University

Washington and Lee University

Washington College

Washington State University

Washington University in St. Louis

Webber International University

Wesleyan University

Whitman College

Willamette University

Williams College

Yale University

Should you submit all of your scores?

If you’re applying to one of the schools on this list, you may be wondering which of your test scores to actually send. Should you submit all of them? Let’s take a look.

Pro: Submitting all scores can only benefit your application. Only the highest composite will be considered, so it cannot reduce your chance of acceptance.

Con: ACT score reports are $13 apiece and this price covers the cost of sending just one test to one school. Sending multiple scores to even one college can quickly become quite expensive. Unfortunately, at this time the ACT does not offer a specific fee waiver on score reports. However, if you received a registration fee waiver to sit for a previous exam, you may be eligible to send up to 20 additional score reports for free.

What’s the bottom line? It depends. To help you decide whether to submit all of your scores, try calculating your own “superscore” ahead of time, using the chart below as an example.

Calculating Your Superscore

Because so many colleges participate in superscoring, you may want to calculate your own superscore before sending out your applications. You can find your ACT superscore by averaging your four best subject scores together. Note that these scores can come from any of your ACT test attempts. 

When calculating your superscore, take the highest score from each section and sum these, then divide the total by 4. We’ve filled in an example of what this might look like.

As you can see in the example above, superscoring adds a whole point to this student’s highest individual exam score. Therefore, it would benefit this student to send all three scores.

Go ahead and calculate your superscore, adding or subtracting rows if necessary to reflect the number of times you’ve taken the ACT. Add up your highest section scores and divide by 4, then round up or down to the nearest integer. This is your superscore.

If your highest composite comes from one sitting, then send only that exam. If your highest composite is a combination of scores from two different testing dates, send both. If you have, say, a third score that will not increase your composite even with superscoring, there is no need to send it unless the school requires you to do so. You can find a list of all the schools which require you to submit all of your scores here.

How Does the ACT’s New Policy Affect Superscoring?

As of September 2020, the ACT will be changing its policy to allow students to retake single sections of the exam. In the past, test-takers who were dissatisfied with their scores on individual section had to sit for the entire three-hour exam again. Not only does this change save students time, but it also prevents them from earning lower scores on other sections of the test. As a bonus, students will no longer have to send in multiple test results. The ACT will provide a new superscore combining the student’s highest marks in the subsections from each test-taking session. 

Other posts you may enjoy:

What is a Good ACT Score?

How the ACT’s Graded: A Breakdown

Should You Retake Your Standardized Tests?

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