ACT Requirement

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

Yes - The rules for the SD Opportunity Scholarship are set up in State Statute 13-55-31 and state 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

ACT is in the process of implementing changes to the ACT test components.  For more information, please visit ACT or a summary of our review at ACT Enhancements.  The changes will take effect starting 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, SDBOR will accept the composite and superscore as we have in the past for those students starting their post-secondary education in the academic year 2025-2026.  We will revisit this approach after full implementation for students that start in 2026-2027.   We do recommend that high school students consider the option of the STEM ACT to ensure they do not miss any opportunity for scholarships that might require that for 2025-2026.