How Many Students Receive a Perfect Score on the ACT/SAT?

If you are all about competition and competing with your fellow students, you probably would like to earn the absolute best score you possibly can on the ACT or SAT. After all, they are your direct competition when trying to get into the college of your choice. While you can take either a standardized exam basically as many times as you would like, it is important to keep your expectations manageable. After all, it is extremely difficult to achieve a perfect score on either the ACT or SAT.

Earning a Perfect Score on the ACT

You may be wondering just how difficult it is to get that perfect score on the ACT exam since such a thing could almost guarantee you entry into your dream college. Well, before you start dreaming of scholarships and awards, you should know what your odds are.

The ACT is scored on a scale of 1 to 36 with the 36 being the best you can get on the test. The average score for students taking the ACT is currently at approximately 21. To put this into perspective, the average ACT score for someone getting accepted by Harvard is 34.

Of course, your odds of earning a perfect score go hand in hand with how well prepared you are for the exam. But if you are looking for the exact probability that a student can get a perfect 36 on the ACT, the odds are about 1 in every 735 students.

Receiving a Perfect on the SAT

Just like with the ACT, earning a perfect score on the SAT is pretty impossible to do. The highest score you can achieve on the SAT is 1600 (in the past it used to be 2400) and the odds are not in your favor.

In 2019, there were an estimated 2.2 million graduating high school students that took the SAT. About 155,000 of these students earned a 1400 or above (almost seven percent). While the SAT officials keep the exact percentage of perfect scores a secret, it is estimated that fewer than 22,000 students scored 1550 to 1600 on the SAT in 2019. So if the math holds up, less than half of one percent achieve a perfect 1600 score on the SAT.

How to Prepare for Your Best Possible Score

The students that earned perfect scores on either exam did not just luck into it. They studied, took practice exams, and studied more. Most of the students took the exam more than once as well as they didn’t want to settle for less. If you are interested in getting your best possible score, iAchieve can definitely help. We offer specific tutoring that will gain you the needed points and will walk you through practice exams as a way to better prepare you for the big day.

With a higher score, you are more likely to get into the school you want and may even be able to receive a grant or scholarship that will make paying for college a bit easier. Even if you don’t get that elusive perfect score, a ranking in the top ten on either exam could do wonders for furthering your education!

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