I wish they would get 1,000 or so random 7th graders to take the ACT so you could get a true percentile score report back!
Random as in "not talent search kids"? I'd guess it would be a curve centered around a point not more than 3 points higher than what you'd get from random guessing.
Random 8th graders take EXPLORE, and average a bit below a 15. Talent search mean increases by a bit more than a point a year. So random 7th graders might get a 13 or 14 on EXPLORE. Assuming that translates to a 13 or 14 on the ACT, you're looking at 5th-10th percentile compared to 7th grade talent search kids. So I think you'd get less meaningful percentiles - your kid would be in the 99+ pool, right with many of the other talent search kids.
Non-random 12th graders get a 21 on the ACT, so you'd expect maybe 7 points of growth in 5 years. I'd anticipate a highly gifted kid to show more growth than that.
