25th-75th Percentile.

I keep looking at college sites and am not fully sure what they mean. For instance, certain colleges say that the mean ACT for their school is a “27-32.” Is that only twenty five percent of the students who took the ACT scored a 27, while the 75 percent others scored a 32? Someone please elucidate.

<p>no it means the bottom 25% of the class got 26 or below and the top 25% of the class got at least a 33</p>

<p>it means that a score of 27 is in the 25th percentile for the pool of admitted students, and a score of 32 is in the 75th percentile. That is, 25% of admitted students scored lower than 27, and 75% scored lower than 32.</p>

<p>HTH</p>

<p>25th-75th percentile means that 75% scored over 27, 75% scored under 32.
which also means that 25% scored over 32, and 25% scored under 27</p>

<p>Oh, so in other words they're being more specific in describing the school's mean, right?</p>

<p>no...percentile doesn't necessarily have anything to do with mean.</p>

<p>I think the listing or 25-75 percentile gives you a quick note at how competitive the school is and what position you will be in if you choose to attend the school. For instance, a non-competitive state school would be really low whereas harvard's 25-75 percentile is 1400-1580 (old SAT). That means even if you scored a 1400 on your old SAT (which I consider a very strong score) and chose to apply to harvard, you would have great difficulty getting in unless you have something on your Apps that makes you stand out.</p>