Shawnee Mission’s ACT scores have been steadily declining over the last five years with the district’s average composite score down more than two points in that time.
Bottom line: The district’s average ACT score of 21.3 remains above state and federal averages but essentially sits right at the cutoff of 21 used for admissions for Kansas Board of Regents schools, including KU and K-State.
Why it matters: In recent years, hundreds of colleges and universities have made ACT and SAT scores optional for admission or dropped the requirement entirely, but the test is still used by some higher education institutions and scholarship-giving organizations as a benchmark for gauging students’ preparedness for college.
The numbers: The overall Shawnee Mission average composite ACT score dropped each year between 2018 and 2022, according to a presentation to the school board this week.
- The class of 2022’s average composite ACT score in Shawnee Mission was 21.3, down from 23.8 for the Class of 2018, according to board documents.
Why this could be happening: District administrators told the board there are several factors contributing to the steady decline, including most notably, the two-year disruption caused by COVID-19.
- The number of students taking the test also rose sharply in the 2018-19 school year after the state of Kansas began paying for all high school juniors to take the test one time.
- That means many students who may not have taken the test in previous years are now taking it at least once, which could be lowering the district’s overall average.
Another factor: Dan Gruman, the district’s director of assessment and research, also said fewer students are taking the test multiple times, a trend due possibly to the fact that fewer colleges are requiring the test.
- Taking the test multiple times can lead to a higher reported score for a student because all their results are averaged together.
Key quote: “There are still other levers like scholarship opportunities and things like that that still rely on some kind of test score,” Gruman said. “We do kind of have to make sure we’re careful not to just tell a student you don’t need to take this test, because they might somewhere in there lose out on some opportunity because they chose not to.”
Digging a bit deeper: The Class of 2022’s average composite scores vary among high schools, with SM East the highest at 23.5.
- The other schools’ average scores include: SM North at 19.5, SM Northwest at 21.5, SM South at 21.5 and SM West at 19.3.
- Meanwhile, the state average for the class of 2022 was 19.9, and the national average was 19.8.
Want more? Read this piece from Smithsonian Magazine about how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated colleges’ move away from the ACT and SAT.
