If you looked up what a Composite of 23 was worth last year, you were told the 76th percentile. Look it up now and you get the 77th. Your score did not change. The table you are being compared against did.

ACT publishes a national rank table for each reporting year. The current one covers tests taken from September 2026 through August 2027 and compares you against ACT-tested graduates from 2024, 2025 and 2026. The one before it covered September 2025 through August 2026 and used graduates from 2023, 2024 and 2025. So one graduating class left the comparison and another entered it.

The tables show what moved. They do not explain why, and neither does this post: a published rank table reports where scores sit, not what put them there.

We compared the two official tables row by row, all 36 scores and all six columns. Every Composite change is listed below, every score that moved down anywhere is named, and the rises in the other columns are counted rather than listed.

Nine Composite scores gained a point

Every other Composite score kept the same whole-number rank: twenty-seven of the thirty-six. Both tables report whole numbers, so a smaller shift inside a point would not show up either way. No Composite score moved down.

That is a statement about the Composite only. The Composite is not the whole test, and the section tables do not all point the same way.

Four Math scores and two STEM scores moved down

English, Math, Reading and Science are scored sections; STEM is a derived score built from Math and Science. Each is reported on the same 1 to 36 scale, so every count below is out of 36 possible scores:

• English: twelve up, none down.
• Reading: eleven up, none down.
• Science: seven up, none down.
• Math: five up and four down.
• STEM: seven up and two down.

The Math scores that lost a point are 32 (from the 98th percentile to the 97th), 31 (97th to 96th), 30 (96th to 95th) and 25 (85th to 84th). STEM 32 and STEM 31 each lost one as well.

So a summary saying ACT percentiles went up this year is true of the Composite and incomplete about Math and STEM, where some scores rose and others fell. The Math falls run from 32 down to 25, so they are not confined to the very top of the scale, though all four are above-average scores. Each of those four Math scores now sits one percentile point lower than it did last year. What any college does with that is a separate question this post does not answer.

A percentile and a scaled score answer different questions

The scaled score is your performance on the 1 to 36 scale, after ACT converts the raw results from the particular form you sat. ACT equates forms so that the scale is comparable across different versions of the test. That is a separate matter from the Composite definition, which did change when Science left it.

The percentile is a comparison. ACT calls it a national rank, and it reports the approximate percentage of recent graduates who earned your score or lower. Change which graduates are in that group and the comparison shifts, even though nothing about your test changed.

Your height does not change when someone new walks into the room. Where you stand in the room does.

What this does not tell you

A rank refresh is weak and ambiguous evidence about whether the test got easier, and on its own it settles nothing.

The tables report where scores sit across many students and many forms. They are not where you would look to find which forms those students sat, how hard individual questions were, or whether participation patterns changed. Neither table sets out how the three-section Composite change was handled in building these ranks, so this post does not guess at it. A shift in where scores sit within a population is a different thing from a change in the difficulty of the questions.

It is also the wrong tool for judging your chances anywhere. A national rank compares you against three recent graduating classes nationally. A college's published range usually describes the students who enrolled there and submitted a score, which is a much smaller group, though exactly who is counted varies by what the college chose to report. The 90th percentile nationally can sit below the typical range at one university and comfortably above it at another.

Which table applies to you

Use the table for the reporting year in which you tested. Scores from tests taken between September 2026 and August 2027 use the current table. Anything earlier uses the table that was current then.

One practical snag: the current table is the one on the national ranks page, so if you tested in an earlier window you will not find your table there. Earlier years are published as separate documents on ACT's site rather than on that page, which is also why a percentile you noted down last year may not match what the page shows you today.

This matters most when you are comparing two things that look comparable and are not:

• Two of your own score reports. If your Composite stayed at 23 but the rank went from 76 to 77, your reported score did not go up. You are reading two different reference years.
• Your score against someone who tested in another year. Compare the scaled scores. Percentiles calculated against different groups are not a clean comparison.
• An article or forum post with a percentile chart. Check which year it used before treating a one-point difference as an error.

Should any of this change your plan

Almost certainly not.

A one-point rank move does not identify a weakness, does not change your scaled score, and is not a reason to retake anything. If you are deciding whether to test again, the questions worth asking are whether your score sits where you need it for the specific colleges on your list, whether one section is clearly behind the others, whether recent timed practice gives you a real reason to expect improvement, and whether another sitting fits your deadlines.

A 23 is still a 23. The label moved, not the score, so check your target against what your colleges currently report rather than against a percentile you remember.

For the change that actually did alter how the Composite is calculated, see what the three-section Composite changed and what it did not.