Retaking the ACT

How Many People Retake the ACT?

Retaking the ACT is common. In recent graduating classes, roughly two in five ACT-tested students have gone back for a second sitting, and with about 1.4 million students in a recent U.S. graduating class taking the ACT, that adds up to hundreds of thousands of repeat test-takers. Most students who retest do so once or twice more, for a total of two or three attempts, while a smaller group tests four or more times. Wherever you land, there is nothing unusual about taking the ACT again — the majority of students who want a higher score do exactly that, and none of them should feel sheepish about it.

Published ACT Scoring Data on Retakes

ACT tracks how repeat test-takers fare from one sitting to the next. In the figures the organization has published, most students who retested — about 57% — raised their composite score, while roughly 21% held steady and 22% came out a little lower. If you prepare and sit the exam again, in other words, the odds are on your side.

Should I Retake the ACT?

Several factors can guide the decision. A retake tends to pay off when a student's scores fell well short of their practice-test performance, when illness or discomfort got in the way on test day, or when the student has since shored up a weak area through additional coursework. Keep in mind that the ACT is retaken as a whole test — you cannot sit for a single multiple-choice section on its own — though you do get to decide each time whether to add the optional Science section or the Writing essay.

How Many Times Should I Retake the ACT?

ACT sets no cap on how many times you may test, so the real question is how many attempts are actually worth your while. Research on standardized retesting tends to follow the law of diminishing returns: score gains usually shrink with each additional sitting. Improvement also gets harder the higher you already sit on the percentile scale — it is far easier to move up from an 18 than from a 32. The bottom line? Outside of exceptional circumstances, we see little reason to take the ACT more than three times.

ACT Retakes and Score Reporting

Students who test more than once control which scores colleges see: you choose the test date whose full set of results gets sent. ACT now also calculates a Superscore automatically for anyone who has tested multiple times — the average of your best English, Math, and Reading section scores across all of your test dates. This is a real departure from the past, when ACT reported only complete, single-date results and left any mixing of scores to the colleges. A great many schools now accept the Superscore, but how each one uses multiple sets of scores is that institution's decision, not ACT's.

ACT Retakes and University Admission

Because ACT's policies govern only what the organization reports, individual colleges remain free to decide how they treat multiple scores. Some superscore automatically, pulling your strongest section results from different dates; others want to see every attempt; a few weigh only your single best sitting. Since these practices vary widely from school to school and shift over time, review the testing policy of each college on your list before you settle on how many times to test and which scores to send.

ACT Senior Retake Day in Tennessee

Tennessee offers a well-known example of retaking at scale. The state's Department of Education launched a publicly funded Senior Retake Day that automatically registered public-school seniors for another shot at the ACT, whether or not they had tested as juniors. Tens of thousands of students took part, and a substantial share raised their composite — enough of a payoff for the state to keep the program going as part of a longer, multi-year climb in its average scores. The takeaway generalizes well beyond Tennessee: when a retake costs little and the potential upside is real, sitting the test again is usually worth it.