However, a 1200 might be a great score if you want to go to a lot of other pretty good schools. If you want to go to a top-tier state university like the University of Texas-Austin, a 1200 is probably a bad score. Instead, we can say this: A bad SAT score is one that is weaker than your GPA. Thus, we can’t really talk about bad scores without having the context of GPA. Similarly, a student with a great GPA but a poor test performance isn’t super competitive at a lot of really competitive universities.

A student with a 1530 but a bad GPA is probably an outsider at most Ivy League schools. For most students, their college prospects depend largely on two things:īoth of these factors are absolutely huge, and at competitive colleges, both need to be strong. Unfortunately, this question is not an easy one to answer. That gives us a starting point to understand what counts as a good SAT score. Increasingly, though, top-tier state universities are above this mark. This kind of score will make most students competitive at a lot of quality flagship state universities and many private schools. If you’re sitting at a 1230, you’re better off than three out of four students, so even if it isn't a 1530, it’s still pretty good. This score would make most students competitive at a lot of great universities.Īsk a lot of people what a good score is, and they’re likely to give an answer that falls somewhere around this mark. 150 points is a ton, and it differentiates just 9% of test takers. This is still an extremely high score (better than 90% of students).

Coincidentally (or maybe not?), this also corresponds roughly to the average score of accepted students at most Ivy League colleges. The 99th percentile used to be closer to 1500, but this elite cutoff has crept up over the last several years. A good place to start is a few key score percentiles from our chart above:ġ520! That’s crazy high. But what’s a good score? What’s a bad one? What kind of score will make you cry? Those are much tougher questions to answer. The average Math score is 528, and the average Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score is 531. Even though there are four sections that students take on the test, these sections combine to produce just two scored sections, Math and Evidence-Based Reading and Writing. Scores range from 400 to 1600, and the average SAT score in 2020 is 1059. SAT Scores: The Good, The Bad and the Average See how your SAT score stacks up against other test takers: SAT Score

Highest sat score possible