Top Mississippi High Schools by ACT Scores 2023

The best Mississippi public high schools by ACT scores are the two residential programs Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science and the Mississippi School of the Arts, plus Madison Central High School in central Mississippi. Other top schools include Oxford High School and Lewisburg Highs School in the suburbs of Memphis and gulf schools of Ocean Springs High School and Biloxi High School. All of these schools scored six percentile ranks above the national average.

Note that elite private schools like St. Andrew’s, Jackson Prep, and Jackson Academy do not report their ACT scores to the Mississippi Department of Education. Instead, parents can reference our article on National Merit Semifinalists to see how Mississippi’s best independent schools compare to their public school counterparts for college readiness.

While a handful of relatively wealthy Mississippi public schools have good ACT results, on average Mississippi seniors unfortunately remain among the least-prepared for college in the nation according to the class of 2023’s ACT scores; as much as 50% of Mississippi’s graduating class may not be ready for college. In fact, out of 240 public high schools, only one school—the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science—graduated a majority of seniors whose test results indicated they were college-ready in all four ACT subject testing areas.

(Scroll down for a table of ACT results from all 240 Mississippi public high schools’ spring 2022 ACT administration)

In the 2023 graduating class, 36,438 Mississippi students took the ACT (about 1,000 fewer than last year), with a mean composite score of 18.4 out of a possible 36. This represents a slight downturn from 2018, when the mean composite was 18.6. Nationally, the average composite score was a 20.7 (also down from last year’s mean composite of 20.8).

Mississippi is one of 20 states which requires and pays for all public-school students to take the ACT in the spring of their junior year; ACT test scores account for 5% of a school’s annual accountability rating. This requirement means that Mississippi’s data is remarkably complete: it is estimated that 100% of students sat for the test.

In only 7 other states, 95% or more of graduates took the ACT in 2022; among these, Wyoming and North Dakota ranked highest with an average composite score of 19.2, while Nevada ranked lowest (of these 8 schools)—just below Mississippi—with an average of 17.3. Nationwide, the highest scores were found in Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and California, the only states with an average score of above 26.4, but these states only tested 18%, 9%, and 4%, respectively.

ACT Benchmark Scores Measure College Readiness

The ACT’s “College Readiness Benchmarks” are the scores (out of 36) on the subject area tests that indicate a student’s chances of college success. The ACT believes that meeting the benchmarks for English, Reading, Mathematics, and Science gives a student a 50% chance of earning a B or higher or a 75% chance of getting a C or higher in a corresponding freshman-level college course. Unchanged since 2013, these benchmark scores and their college course equivalents are:

• English (English Composition) – 18
• Reading (Social Sciences) – 22
• Math (College Algebra) – 22
• Science (Biology) – 23

Since 2015, the ACT has also offered a College Readiness Benchmark for coursework in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), based on scores on the Math & Science subject area tests. Because college-level STEM coursework tends to be more academically challenging (for instance, many STEM freshmen begin with Calculus instead of Algebra), ACT has determined that the benchmark ACT score is significantly higher for STEM than in other subject areas. Meeting the STEM benchmark indicates a 50% chance of earning a B or higher in identified college-level STEM courses. The benchmark score is: Math & Science (STEM) – 26

Majority of Mississippi Juniors are Not College Ready

Percent of Mississippi Students (dark blue) Compared to the Nation (light blue) Meeting College Benchmarks (ACT Inc.) in 2019.

Appropriately for the state which has produced William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and (more recently) Jesmyn Ward, Mississippi’s graduates are most prepared for college English, with 46% of students meeting the English benchmark in 2019, and 20% of schools with an average English score above the benchmark in 2022. Far fewer students met the benchmarks for the other subject areas in 2019, though: 29% in Reading, 20% in Math, and 19% in Science; only 7% of graduates met the benchmark for STEM.

Similarly, in 2019, English was the only subject test on which Mississippi students’ average score (18.1) was higher than the benchmark (18). On the other subject tests, average scores fell significantly below the benchmarks: 18.9 in Reading, 17.9 in Math, and 18.4 in both Science and STEM. In all subject areas, the portion of college-ready Mississippi graduates lagged behind the national average by more than 10%, and is less than half when looking at all four testing areas (12% of Mississippi students meet all four benchmarks; nationally that number is 26%).

Racial Disparities Exacerbate Mississippi’s Low ACT Scores

Percent of Mississippi 2019 ACT-Tested High School Graduates Meeting Three or More Benchmarks by Race/Ethnicity

Sadly, one of the biggest indicators of ACT success, both nationwide and in Mississippi, is one over which students have no control: their racial background.

Nationally, Asian Americans have the highest rates of success, followed by white students; students who identify as Black or African American score the lowest, just behind students with American Indian heritage. (Students who identify as either Hispanic or Pacific Islander score somewhere in the middle.)

The racial makeup of Mississippi’s graduating class shows the disparities most clearly between white and Black students: although they make up nearly equal proportions of the senior class (42% identify as white; 38% as Black), white students are more than five times more likely to meet three or more College Readiness Benchmarks than their Black peers.

Students Can Improve Their ACT Scores

Luckily for students looking to increase their chances of ACT success, there are several actions they can take which are statistically likely to improve their scores.

1. Focus on schoolwork and take academically challenging classes. Students who do better in school nearly always do better overall on standardized tests like the ACT. For example, in 2019, Mississippi students taking physics were more than 10% more likely to pass the ACT Science benchmark than those who were not.
2. Take the ACT more than once. There is a clear statistical advantage to retesting, even according to ACT; in 2019, the average composite score of Mississippi graduates who took the ACT two or more times was 19.5, more than 3 points higher than the average composite score (16.2) of students who took the test only once. Students worried about the cost of retesting should consider ACT’s fee waiver program, which allows eligible students to test for free.
3. Spend time studying and preparing specifically for the ACT. Taking practice tests helps students familiarize themselves with the content and the format of the test and gives them specific feedback. In addition, working with a tutor can be an effective way of improving a student’s weakest areas and developing test-taking strategies. Piqosity offers a full suite of free ACT Practice materials, perfect for students looking to increase their chances of ACT success.

Mississippi is also invested in helping its students who aren’t yet meeting benchmark goals. In 2019 in every subject area besides math, over 10% of the graduates who didn’t meet the benchmarks were within 2 points of doing so. In an effort to get those students the help they need, all Mississippi school districts are now required to offer two specialized classes to seniors who are just below benchmark scores. All students who earn at least an 80% in “Essentials for College Literacy” or “Essentials for College Math” are entitled to enter credit-bearing courses at all Mississippi public universities and community colleges.

Mississippi’s Colleges are Accessible and Affordable

Nearly three-quarters of Mississippi’s graduating seniors have college plans, and Mississippi is eager to help them get there. It is one of only nine states with some form of automatic admission.

At all eight of Mississippi’s public universities, an applicant will be granted full admission if they have a:

1. High school GPA of 2.5 and score at least a 16 composite on the ACT OR
2. High school GPA of 2.0 and score at least an 18 composite on the ACT

These are attainable goals; at two-thirds of Mississippi’s 240 public high schools, the majority of students earned a composite score of 16 or higher.

It’s not surprising, then, that (in 2019) 70% of Mississippi’s ACT score reports were sent to in-state public colleges. The top five colleges among test-takers were:

• Mississippi State
• University of Southern Mississippi
• University of Mississippi
• Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College
• Jackson State University

What’s more, these colleges are relatively inexpensive, too; all four universities are ranked among Mississippi’s Top 15 Most Affordable Colleges for in-state tuition, averaging a yearly cost of about $25,000. (Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, which isn’t compared to public universities, is about half the cost, around $12,000 per year.) The costs are even lower once financial aid has been factored in: the Net Price—what students will actually owe—is as much as $10,000 less per year.

Top Mississippi High Schools by ACT Scores — Class of 2023

Out of 240 public high schools,  the majority of students were college-ready in English at 61 schools, but just 3 schools had a majority of college-ready students in Reading; only one school graduated a majority of seniors whose test results indicated they were ready for college Math and Science courses.

Top 10 Mississippi Public High Schools by ACT Scores (composite)

1. Mississippi School For Math & Science (28.1)
2. Mississippi School Of The Arts (22.1)
3. Madison Central High School (21.8)
4. Oxford High School (21)
5. Ocean Springs High School (20.8)
6. Lewisburg High School (20.6)
7. Biloxi High School (20.3)
8. Vancleave High School (20.2)
9. Hernando High School (20.1)
10. Pass Christian High School (20.1)

How to Read This Sortable Table

• The default sort is by composite score from highest to lowest; to change the sorting order, click on the header by which you want to sort
• “Composite” is the school’s average composite ACT score from 0 to 36
• “English, Reading, Math, Science” refers to the school’s average scores in each subject test from 0 to 36
• “Tested” is the number of students who sat for the exam at each school

Mississippi ACT Scores 2023

Improve Your ACT Scores with Piqosity

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For the full datasets referenced in this article:

• Average ACT Scores by State Graduating Class of 2022
• ACT Database for US ACT Score Trends in the Class of 2022
• 2022 ACT Scores for Mississippi High Schools

More Educational Resources from Piqosity:

• Eight Poems to Teach Figurative Language
• Do ACT Scores Predict College Success?
• College Admissions Interview Tips from the Interviewer
• 5th Grade Level Books to Improve Vocabulary
• How to Help Your Child With Math