Recent statistics show that NIU students are easily surpassing the university’s required ACT score.

The average freshman from the incoming fall 2006 class at NIU had an ACT score of 22.4, well ahead of the university’s minimum requirement of 19, said NIU director of admissions Bob Burk.

The 2006 Illinois state average was 20.5, while the national average is 21.2, according to the school districts from which students participated. According the University of Illinois-Champaign, 75 percent of the fall 2006 freshman class at the university scored a 27 or higher on their ACT.

High school students around the Chicagoland area in the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 averaged a composite score of 22.9 in 2007, the school districts reported. The composite score is also significantly higher than NIU’s minimum requirement.

The reasoning behind NIU’s requirement being so much lower than the state and national average is due to a desire to appeal to a range of potential students, Burk said.

“We serve the entire population in the state of Illinois. The University of Illinois can set their requirements high because of the supply and demand. We don’t need to set our scores that high because there are only so many of those types of students out there,” Burk said. “The university commits itself to diversity and being affordable.”

Chrisy Land, a sophomore elementary education major, believes NIU’s ACT requirement is low, but is torn on whether the school should raise it.

“I would say yes, but then again, the people whose scores are not that high need college too, and they need a good place that they can get into,” Land said. “I think NIU is really good for that.”

Possessing a lower standard in regard to the ACT is not a reflection on NIU as a whole, Burk said.

“We have such tremendous programs here,” he said.