The STEM Score

Math and science already get their own scores, so why add a third number that just blends them? Because colleges and scholarship programs for science, technology, engineering and math majors want one readout that reflects both subjects at once, not two separate ones they'd have to average themselves. The STEM score does that averaging for them, using the same 1 to 36 scale as every other score, so it slots in next to your composite without needing a decoder.

The mechanism is plain arithmetic: take the math scale score, take the science scale score, add them, divide by two. The result can land on a half-point, and reporting typically rounds it to the nearest whole number the same way the composite does. Nothing from English or reading enters the calculation, and no new questions are asked, it is purely a recombination of two scores you already earned.

This matters most at the benchmark level. A STEM benchmark of 26 is a different, often tougher bar than a math benchmark of 26 alone, because it demands that science hold up too, not just math. A student strong in math but weak in science can clear the math benchmark while missing the STEM one, which is exactly the gap colleges want visible. That is also why skipping the optional science section kills the STEM score entirely: with only one half of the pair, there is nothing to average, so the section simply does not appear on the report.