Oklahoma Offering Free ACT, SAT to Students This Fall

A broken promise to the class of 2021 has turned into a golden opportunity for current high school students.

This fall, students in 10th through 12th grades can take an additional college entrance exam for free if their school opts in. Available exams are the ACT, SAT and PSAT, which is the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship Program.

All Oklahoma juniors currently take either the ACT or SAT during school hours in the spring as part of state testing. The exams weren’t held in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, and were not made up in the fall due to a budget shortfall.

Expanded opportunities to take the exams this fall were recently announced by the state Education Department.

The tests are offered at no cost to the student or district. Federal COVID-19 relief dollars are being used to pay for it.

The test dates are Oct. 5 for ACT and Oct. 13 for SAT and PSAT. The ACT will be offered to students in 10th-12th, SAT to students in 11th and 12th and PSAT for students in 10th and 11th.

Schools must register with the Education Department by Friday to offer the ACT and by Sept. 15 for the SAT/ PSAT.

Students can use the additional opportunity to take a different test than the one offered by their school in 11th grade or try to improve their score.

“We recognize that students with the highest ACT or SAT scores don’t typically take that test just once,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister said last week, speaking at the State of Schools, hosted by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. “Students improve as they acclimate to the college entrance exam – which actually is a composite of all the skills they should have mastered in high school.”

In 2017, Oklahoma began using the ACT or SAT to assess high school students instead of end-of-instruction exams. Most schools administer the ACT, which is scored from 1 to 36.

As participation reached 100%, the state’s average ACT score made an expected decline but has continued to lag.

The average composite score for Oklahoma’s class of 2020 was 18.7, slightly lower than the previous year’s 18.9. It was also one of the lowest among the 15 states that test all students; only Nevada and Mississippi produced lower average scores, according to ACT.

Data from the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Education reveals a wide range of average composite scores at high schools, from 25.3 at Classen School of Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City Public Schools to 14.07 at Butner High School.

Oklahoma ACT Scores 2019

In the table below, you can find out your public high school’s average score on the ACT college-readiness exam. These scores are averages of the highest score achieved on the test by 2019 graduating seniors.

Only public high schools are included in the table. Previous years' versions included private high schools and state high schools but the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education stopped collecting that data.

The average composite was 18.9 but dipped to 18.7 for the class of 2020, according to ACT. The national average composite for 2020 is 20.6.

Numbers for schools with fewer than six testers were withheld to protect students’ privacy. The scores come from ACT Inc.

Jennifer Palmer has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2016 and covers education. Contact her at (405) 761-0093 or jpalmer@oklahomawatch.org. Follow her on Twitter @jpalmerOKC.

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.