ACT Score Comparison for Admission to California Colleges

A Side-by-Side Comparison of ACT Admissions Data for 32 Schools

Royce Hall at UCLA. Photo Credit: Marisa Benjamin

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Updated on February 21, 2020

What ACT scores do you need to get into one of the top California colleges or universities? This side-by-side comparison of scores shows the middle 50 percent of enrolled students. If your scores fall within or above these ranges, you're on target for admission to one of these top California colleges.

California Colleges ACT Score Comparison

	Composite 25%	Composite 75%	English 25%	English 75%	Math 25%	Math 75%
Berkeley	31	34	31	35	29	35
California Lutheran	22	27	22	28	22	27
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	26	31	25	33	26	32
Caltech	34	36	34	36	35	36
Chapman University	25	30	25	31	24	29
Claremont McKenna College	31	33	30	33	28	33
Harvey Mudd College	32	35	32	35	32	35
Loyola Marymount University	26	30	25	32	25	29
Mills College	23	29	-	-	-	-
Occidental College	28	31	28	34	26	31
Pepperdine University	26	31	25	33	25	29
Point Loma Nazarene	23	28	23	30	23	28
Pomona College	31	34	31	35	28	34
Saint Mary's College	22	28	22	28	20	27
Santa Clara University	28	32	-	-	-	-
Scripps College	28	32	30	34	26	31
Soka University	26	30	26	33	24	29
Stanford University	31	35	32	35	30	35
Thomas Aquinas College	25	30	27	34	25	27
UC Davis	25	31	24	32	24	31
UC Irvine	24	30	23	31	25	31
UCLA	28	33	28	35	27	34
UCSD	27	33	26	33	27	33
UC Santa Barbara	27	32	26	33	26	32
UC Santa Cruz	25	30	24	31	24	29
University of the Pacific	23	30	22	31	23	29
University of Redlands	22	27	22	27	20	26
University of San Diego	26	30	25	32	25	29
University of San Francisco	23	28	23	30	23	28
University of Southern California	30	33	30	35	28	34
Westmont College	23	29	24	32	23	28

SAT version of this table

Tables for Cal State and the University of California

The ACT and Your Admission

Even though the SAT is far more popular than the ACT in California, the colleges and universities in the table above will accept either exam. If the ACT is your better test, don't hesitate to use your ACT scores for your application.

Note that there is a wide range of variation among the different schools. You can be above the 75th percentile for Westmont College but that score would place you at or below the 25th percentile for USC, Berkeley, or CalTech. This would mean the rest of your application would really need to shine if you wanted to attend those schools.

If your ACT scores aren't what you had hoped for, don't forget that 25 percent of applicants have scores below the lower number shown as the 25th percentile and that the ACT is just one piece of your college application. Most of these colleges and universities will want to see other strong measures such as a strong academic record, a winning essay, meaningful extracurricular activities and good letters of recommendation.

What Percentiles Mean

Percentiles tell how many of the admitted students fall within different ranges. The middle 50 percent of admitted students are between the 25th and 75 percentile.

If your score is at the 25th percentile, it means that three-quarters of the students scored better than you did. If your score is at the 75th percentile, you scored better than three-quarters of admitted students. This would clearly strengthen your application measurably.

Data Source: National Center for Education Statistics

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Your Citation

Grove, Allen. "ACT Score Comparison for Admission to California Colleges." ThoughtCo, Aug. 25, 2020, thoughtco.com/act-score-for-california-colleges-admission-788813. Grove, Allen. (2020, August 25). ACT Score Comparison for Admission to California Colleges. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/act-score-for-california-colleges-admission-788813 Grove, Allen. "ACT Score Comparison for Admission to California Colleges." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/act-score-for-california-colleges-admission-788813 (accessed May 28, 2023).