For the eighth consecutive year, Washington state students scored far above the national average on the ACT exam, according to results released today. Mercer Island High School students scored even higher.
Washington State students in the class of 2011 finished with the nation’s ninth highest (average) composite score of 22.8, finishing just behind students in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.
Nearly 11,000 Washington state students took the optional ACT writing test, averaging a composite score of 22.9 compared to the national average of 21.5.
In 2010, the 216 Mercer Island High School students who took the test had an average composite score of 26.5. The 2011 scores are not yet available.
One out of every five Washington 12th-graders (13,677) took the ACT in the 2010-11 school year, a record for ACT participation in this state. Those students averaged a composite score of 22.8, compared to the national average of 21.0.
A composite score consists of four content areas: English, reading, math and science. Scores are scaled from one (lowest) to 36 (highest).
As defined by ACT, students meeting benchmark are predicted to have a 50 percent chance of obtaining a B or higher in a corresponding college course.
The ACT, is primarily used for admission into colleges and universities. Washington students have proven to be among the nation’s best in college readiness tests during much of the past decade.
