Fayette’s 2017 graduates maintained the school system’s traditionally high average composite score on the ACT, continuing the five-year trend of high performance on the college readiness test.

Fayette’s 2017 average composite score is 23.2, the third highest in the state and in the metro Atlanta area. It also ranks in the top one percent of the 270 school systems in the state that had ACT scores.

The county’s average score is 1.8 points higher than the state average of 21.4, and 2.2 points higher than the national average of 21.0.

Compared to last year’s composite score, which was the highest for the school system in five years, the 2017 score remains virtually unchanged, dropping four tenths of a percentage point.

All five high schools landed in the top 40 percent of Georgia high schools.

Individual school scores remained the same or close to the same as last year, with some scores dropping between 1.4 and four tenths of a percentage point. McIntosh High was the only school that posted an increase of six tenths of a percentage point from last year. Compared to the 381 Georgia high schools with ACT scores, some testing fewer than 100 students, McIntosh is ninth in the state, Starr’s Mill is 35th in the state, Whitewater is 48th in the state, Sandy Creek is 89th in the state, and Fayette County High is 147th in the state.

A total of 1,079 students in Fayette took the 2017 ACT, a 6.5 percent decrease from last year.

The ACT consists of curriculum-based tests of educational development in English, math, reading, and science designed to measure the skills needed for success in first-year college coursework.