What's a Good SAT Score?

Article Type: Quick and Dirty

With the PSAT® over and done with (congrats!), it's time to start thinking SAT®. (Too soon?)

Before you dive in for your test date, you're gonna want to be sure you're ready. And you might want a reasonable answer to a reasonable question: what's a good score for the SAT?

As we said for the PSAT, good's subjective. But there are a few different ways to break down the SAT score to help you figure out if your goals are on track.

1. College Board Benchmarks

When the numbers are in, the College Board powers-that-be will fork over a comprehensive score report to you, complete with a series of benchmarks that will give you an idea of your college readiness. If "good" to you means "not falling into the red zone," benchmarks will tell you if you're where you need to be. 

Supposedly, if you meet or exceed the benchmark, you'll have a 75% chance of earning at least a C in your first semester of college.

Plus, they're color-coded, so you'll actually know if you're falling into the red zone. Check 'em out here.

2. Average

If you don't have the time for benchmarks, checking out the mean score will be a quick indicator of how you measure up on the SAT. The mean score hangs around 1000 or 1010, with the two section scores averaging about 500. You'll see the specific numbers on your score report, too. 

If you're in the ballpark, you can expect that you're on the right track for college readiness.

3. College Goals

If you have a big college list in mind, do a little research and look for the average SAT scores of those colleges' admitted students. Competitive schools like Stanford, Yale, and Johns Hopkins are going to have higher score standards than other schools.

With a goal in mind, you'll be able to handle your studying moving forward to hit your goal, and hopefully, an acceptance letter. But keep in mind that test scores aren't everything, retakes are possible, or maybe you're more of an ACT guy or gal.

And as always, Shmoop's got your back.

What's the Average Score on the SAT?

And why is it important to know what the average score on the SAT is? Because...that's the score the test writers are hoping most test-takers—including you—will earn! 

The test is made so that the average score ends up being around 1000 out of 1600. For those of you not familiar with bells, the bell curve (See? We promised you there would be more later) is a graphical way of looking at score distribution. The flatter the bell curve, the wider the range in scores. If everybody who took the SAT scored between a 1050 and a 1060, the bell curve wouldn't really look like a bell at all. People would have to start calling it the doesn't-actually-resemble-a-bell curve, and that just doesn't have the same ring to it. Pun totally intended.

If the ladies and gents who created this test had asked questions so hard that even Einstein would have flunked, there would be no "dispersion" among takers. That is, we wouldn't get to see who had game and who didn't. That result would be of no use to colleges, and all that SAT sweat would have been shed for naught. You'd get the same result if the questions were so easy that everyone got a perfect score. Well, there would probably be less sweat. 

Still, the goal of this test is to separate intellectual wheat from chaff, and the test creators are hoping that scores will follow a "normal" dispersion pattern. "Normal" does not refer to the bell curve's social habits; rather, it means that test scores demonstrate a fairly wide range: lots of scores in the big, fat middle and only a very small handful of scores on either side.

The test writers want most students to score in the 500s. Think about what a score of 500 means, though. It means that the gang who wrote the test wants a lot of students to get a lot of answers correct. Translation: Lots of easy questions.

On the other hand, to protect the upper echelons of 1400s and better, the test makers make some of the questions crazy-hard so that only Junior Bobby Fischers and Madames de Stael have a shot at getting 800s. The context here is the key point.. 

By knowing which questions the writers want you to miss, you can either 

• Skip 'em like you were Russell Byars, or… 
• Think like the test writers, and avoid the "sexy" answer choices. Those are answers with alluring-yet-dangerous choices that seductively call to the unsuspecting student, like Sirens in some mythical Odyssey. If you are not prepared to resist these pitfalls, you run the risk of being tempted, crashing your ship on the rocks, and being forced to spend the rest of your days hanging with Davy Jones in his mollusk- and conch-infested deep-sea digs.

When will I receive my SAT Score?

You will receive your SAT results for the multiple-choice section of the exam about two weeks after you take the exam. If you decided to take the essay, you should be able to view scores for the essay within a few days of receiving your multiple-choice results.

What does my percentile ranking on the SAT mean?

A percentile rank lets you know how well you did on the SAT relative to other students. Say you see your ranking is in the 75th percentile. That means that on average, about 25% of juniors and seniors taking the SAT did better than you, and about 75% did the same or worse than you. There are two types of percentile rankings: one where they rank you against a "nationally representative sample" of students in grades 11 and 12, and another where they take the actual scores of students who have taken the SAT.

Is This the Only Thing Colleges Look At? Doesn’t the Fact That I’m Double-Jointed Carry Any Weight at All?

Well, we’re impressed, for what it’s worth. But no, most admissions offices are fairly unconcerned about what weird things you can do with your body.

The SAT is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to being accepted at a college or university, but it’s a pretty huge chunk. Your academic record is taken into consideration, of course (hopefully it’s longer and more impressive than your prison record), as well as your involvement in extracurricular activities and whether you have exhibited any leadership qualities in any of your ventures.

Colleges want the best and the brightest. If you’re naturally gifted and sailed through all your classes from kindergarten on, but refused to study a lick for the SAT and bombed it horribly, your history of excellence may not matter so much. An admissions officer is going to look at your subpar performance on the test and take that as a warning sign or indicator that you either don’t have the work ethic that will be needed at the college level, or else that your academic performance up to that point was a bit flukish and your SAT score finally revealed your true colors. Either way, an Ivy League may now be out of your league.

Are There Any Other Reasons to Take This Test?

Taking the test is mostly to appease college admissions officers. But the test is not otherwise wholly without merit.

You’re about to set out on the path that will lead to the rest of your life. Hopefully this will include college. Even more hopefully this will include employment of some type. The material covered on the SAT - much of which you will have only a dim recollection of unless you work like the dickens to refresh your memory - is going to come in handy quite often in your future days. By diving in and reviewing all of the subject matter, you are going to enhance your understanding of everything you’ve learned over the past several years, and by doing so make yourself an overall more desirable and well-rounded student, employee and human being. Even if you’re not that worried about what type of human being you’ll turn out to be, the first two still apply.

The test can also serve as a barometer of your scholastic aptitude to satisfy your own curiosity. If you’ve ever wanted to know how you stack up against the rest of the herd, this is your way to find out. As we mentioned, test-taking abilities are valued here almost as much as material retention, so your score may be a somewhat qualitative one, but it should still give you a pretty good idea. If you score a 215, for example, it’s probably safe to say you’re not a future Rhodes Scholar.

As we told you, you’re mostly taking this test so that you improve your chances of succeeding in college. But it isn’t all about just getting accepted. You can open up scholarship opportunities, bypass introductory college courses, and potentially even fulfill your writing assessment requirement for certain institutions just by having already taken the test. And perhaps most importantly of all, it will test your ability to sit in one place while nearly motionless for hours on end. Welcome to the American workforce. We’ll make you a coffee.

Are There Any Other Options? I’ll Do Anything - Anything!

An option that doesn’t involve taking a huge test? Not really, no. You could take the ACT instead - it may just depend on what’s offered wherever it is that you go to school. And don’t be misled by the fact that ACT scores only go up to 36 - there are actually more questions on the ACT than on the SAT - your score is simply a composite score of your performance on each of the four sections. And you thought you had just uncovered a loophole.

Your other option is to not take any test of any kind, go to a small community college or skip it altogether, work as a minion in some stock room or factory and struggle financially (and probably physically and emotionally as well) for the remainder of your time on Earth. On the other hand, if you spend just a little time studying remainders, your quality of life from here on out may be much improved.

What If the School I Want to Get Into Doesn’t Require That I Take the SAT? Gotcha!

Well, yes and no. If you are really set on one college in particular and that school clearly specifies that they do not require new students to have taken the SAT, then technically you don’t need to take it. But what if you change your mind? What if a better option is suddenly presented to you? And what if - God forbid - you don’t get accepted at that dream college of yours (who knows - maybe they weren’t impressed by your note stating you had a “barely above average GPA”) and you need a backup plan? Might be a good idea to have that SAT in your back pocket just in case. As our Jewish mother likes to say to us, “What will it hurt?”

So That’s It, Huh. I Don’t Really Have a Choice, Do I?

Not if you value your education and hope to live in a house someday, no. We don’t want to generalize, of course - some of you may be really hard up and already set on a college that has no SAT requirement, and it would be tough for you to swing the exam fees. We get that. Maybe your dad has already promised you ownership and management of the family restaurant once you graduate. Understood. There are surprisingly few questions on the SAT with regard to the proper internal cooking temperature of shellfish, so much of it may not be of that much help to you in your new endeavor. (Although, in this example, a restaurant manager needs nothing if not math and communication skills, so you’d probably really be missing out.)

But for the rest of you, the SAT is as necessary a step as your first day of kindergarten or your first playground wedgie. It isn’t necessarily fun, but it can lead to a whole lot of financial stability and security later in your life, which - believe it or not - is someday going to seem like a whole boatload of fun. Today’s Call of Duty is tomorrow’s 401k. Trust us - we know this stuff.

Good luck on that test, young lads and lassies - may the Shmoop be with you. (And also with you.)

SAT is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.

PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation, which were not involved in the production of, and do not endorse, this product.

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