ACT Requirement

Is an ACT of 24 required to receive funding for the SD Opportunity Scholarship?   

Yes - South Dakota Codified Law section 13-55-31.2 requires ACT college readiness benchmark scores for English, reading, math, and science for SD Opportunity Scholarship eligibility and establish that a student must have a 24 ACT or higher to qualify for the SD Opportunity Scholarship. While the laws regarding the SD Opportunity scholarship do grant some situations where an exemption can be granted to the rules of the scholarship, state statute does not grant the Board of Regents authority to waive the Initial Eligibility Requirements.

ACT Super Score

The ACT Score must be an official score reported on an official test report issued from ACT.  Test Scores can be reported by the High School on the Student’s transcript can be used to qualify for the scholarship.

If you are using an ACT Super Score to qualify for the scholarship, this must be ACT reported and may not be one that is manually calculated by the student, high school, or university.  In most high schools, admin is not able to report ACT Super Scores on the student’s high school transcript – in this case, the student must request that a new, updated ACT Score report must be sent to the university campus.

ACT Change Impact

In 2025, ACT implemented changes to the ACT test components.  For more information, please visit ACT or a summary of our review at ACT Enhancements.  The changes started taking effect in April 2025 for those that take the test online and then in September 2025 for those taking the paper form. 

Due to the implementation process of ACT changes, SDBOR will allow a transition period and accept the composite and Super Score with the SD Opportunity Scholarship application as previously done for those students starting their post-secondary education in the academic years 2025-2026 and 2026-2027. 

Starting with the application period for SD Opportunity Scholarship funding in academic year 2027-2028 (High School Class of 2027 and beyond), students will also need to take the optional Science portion of the ACT and submit an ACT STEM score along with their ACT Composite and/or Super Scores for eligibility evaluation purposes.