is a 36 a good ACT score?

A 36 puts you in roughly the top 1-2% of test takers nationally. Every college in the country reads this as a top score, including the most selective ones, and at many large universities it unlocks their highest automatic merit scholarship tier.

At this level the question is no longer "is my score good enough" but "does the rest of my application match it." If you're retesting from here, it should be for a specific scholarship cutoff, not general improvement.

Percentiles are approximate, rounded from ACT's published national norms, which shift slightly each year. Since 2025 the ACT composite is the average of English, Math and Reading. Science is an optional section reported separately.