Are your students on track for college and career readiness?

It’s critical to know as soon as possible which students are on track to graduate ready to meet the challenges of college or career and which ones may need additional help. The earlier in the school year—and, perhaps more importantly, the earlier in a student’s academic career—that educators get this information, the more opportunities they have to provide extra support, personalize instruction, and ultimately accelerate learning.

Middle school age children sitting together smiling for a group photo

You can now use Renaissance Star Reading^® and Renaissance Star Math^® data to see if students are on track to meet the college and career readiness benchmarks on the ACT and the College Board SAT college admissions tests!²

Renaissance makes it easy to determine progress towards ACT and SAT benchmarks as early as sixth grade

Both ACT and the College Board have set college and career readiness benchmarks for their college entrance exams to help identify students who are more likely to achieve success in college or career.¹ However, many students don’t take these assessments until their junior year of high school, giving educators little time to improve student performance.

Researchers at Renaissance^® have linked Star Reading and Star Math to the ACT college admissions test for English, reading, and mathematics as well as the SAT college admissions test for evidence-based reading and writing (ERW) and mathematics. (For more information about the linking process, download the technical reports for the ACT and SAT.)

Starting in sixth grade, you can enter students’ Star scores into this free tool to see if they are on track to reach college and career readiness benchmarks on both the ACT and the SAT.

Please note: Starting in the 2021-2022 school year, the Star Unified Scale will be the default in the Star software.

The ACT/SAT benchmark tool, however, will continue to use the student’s Star Enterprise scaled score. To view Unified and Enterprise scaled score conversions, please refer to the conversion tables in the Star technical manuals.

Star Reading technical manual pages 117-121
Star Math technical manual pages 96-99
Star Early Literacy technical manual pages 101-102

2. Enter each student's Star {{mode == 'reading' ? 'Reading' : 'Math' }} Enterprise scaled score.
You can press the tab key to create a new row.

Data row	Star Reading Score	Star Math Score	{{ benchmark.name }}

3. Use the blue buttons above to select the data to display in the graph below.

How to interpret this report: {{chartBenchmark.name}}

In the above table, each student will have one of two indicators in the “{{chartBenchmark.name}}” column: a green “on track” indicator ? {{ chartBenchmark.tooltip_green }} or a yellow “below” indicator. ? {{ chartBenchmark.tooltip_yellow }} This describes a student’s performance in comparison to the estimated pathway of achievement for . The bar chart below the table arranges student scores from highest to lowest (and is not in the same order as the table) to show the distribution of students in comparison to the estimated benchmark for your selected grade and month (represented by the gray line).

Improving student performance

Learn more about predicting performance on high-stakes tests

Read the blog

Don’t have Renaissance Star Assessments?

If you don’t have Renaissance Star Assessments^®, you’re not only missing the opportunity to see if students are on track for ACT and SAT success—you’re also missing the chance to predict student scores on your state assessments! In 20 minutes or less, Star Assessments can give you rich insights into student learning and accurate predictions of future achievement.

Get started by exploring Renaissance Star 360^®, the most comprehensive pre-K–12 interim and formative assessment suite available. Star 360 includes computer-adaptive assessments for reading, math, and early literacy—all in both English and Spanish—as well as fixed-form tests for formative assessment.

Let's talk about giving your students a head start on college and career success.

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ACT is a registered trademark of ACT, Inc. in the US and other countries. College Board and SAT are registered trademarks of the College Board in the US and other countries.

¹ The ACT College Readiness Benchmarks are scores that indicate a student has a 50% chance of obtaining a B or higher or about a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit-bearing courses. For more information about ACT benchmarks, please visit the ACT website. SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmarks are scores that indicate a student has a 75% chance of earning at a least a C in first-semester, credit-bearing college courses. For more information about SAT benchmarks, please visit the SAT website.

² Estimates do not guarantee performance on the ACT or the SAT. Researchers linked Renaissance Star Assessments to the ACT and SAT scales at grade 11 to determine the Star scores that were equivalent to ACT and SAT benchmarks. They then estimated benchmarks back to grade 6 to show a pathway over time. Estimates were made using normative data and may not be accurate for all students. For more information, please view the ACT and SAT linking studies.