["I really didn't have much faith in my friend when he wanted to get a better ACT score, especially since he started out with a 22."]
Has he put in a lot of effort in studying and trying to improve?
One of my friends had a really low ACT score to begin with, as it was around a 22. I thought he couldn't get it much higher, but he managed to try really hard and get it up to a 28, which really surprised me.