If you’re reading this, maybe you’ve already decided if you’re going to take the SAT or the ACT (and if you haven’t, here's some help). Or maybe you’ve taken one or both of these tests already and have that crazy stress behind you! Good for you!
Getting these tests in the books should feel great, but we’re guessing there’s that little nagging feeling as you wait for your SAT scores or your ACT scores. “What’s a good SAT score?” you might be asking yourself? “What’s a good ACT score?” “Why can’t they just make it easier on us and give us a score out of 100 points?”
If only.
Figuring out SAT or ACT score ranges is pretty simple. You can probably also pretty easily find out the average SAT score or the average ACT score. But determining a “good” SAT score or a “good” ACT score is a little more subjective. And that’s where we come in!
What is a good SAT score?
Remember that SAT scores are just a part of your application. Your transcripts, your application essays, your extracurricular activities, and your interviews all help make you a candidate schools want to consider. So, the simple answer is a good SAT score is one that will contribute to your overall picture of awesomeness as an applicant (you are more than numbers on a test that you take one Saturday when you’re super stressed about school, and applying to college, and life!). We’d recommend reframing to thinking about earning a competitive SAT score as opposed to a “good” SAT score.
That’s probably a bit vague, so you can also think of it this way … you want to aim for scoring in at least the 50th percentile or higher for the schools you’re applying to. At the 50th percentile, this means your score is higher than that of half the people who took the SAT.
If you’re applying to highly selective schools, scoring in the top 75th percentile is even better. A score in this range means you’re in the top 25% of students who apply to that school and who take the SAT. This would be considered a competitive SAT score.
Easier said than done, we know. But never fear, we have tips for everything college-application related, so check this out for some tips to help you raise your SAT scores.
What is a good SAT score in each section?
The SAT has a math section and a reading/writing section called Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW). Each section can earn a SAT score range from 200-800. The higher your score falls in this range, the more competitive your test scores are.
On average, the test scores in math fall in the low 500s. The average SAT score in the EBRW section is slightly higher at around the mid 5oos. But average scores will vary a ton from college to college.
So what are good SAT scores in each of these sections? Anything that hits the average or higher. If you earn even higher scores, you’re getting stronger and stronger as an applicant (At least from a numbers perspective. But we want to remind you again, you are more than numbers on a test. So much more!)
What is a good overall SAT score?
Again, “good” is in the eye of the beholder. The average SAT score across the US is around 1060. Here's a link to the College Board’s guide to understanding SAT composite scores (your composite score is the scores of both sections combined into one SAT score).
But again, a lot of this depends on which schools you’re applying to. Some colleges and universities admit students with lower than average SAT scores while others have applicants with very high average scores (e.g. MIT students average a 1540). And some schools don’t consider SAT scores at all! But more on that later.
To get a general sense of the range of SAT scores of accepted students to various colleges and universities, here’s a handy-dandy table that outlines these numbers for you. We’ve given you the range of SAT Math scores, the range of SAT EBRW scores, and the school’s acceptance rate (out of total number of applicants) for some Ivy League schools, some UCs, some private universities, and some public universities:
| School | SAT Math | SAT EBRW | Acceptance Rate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Columbia | 740-800 | 700-770 | 5% | ||
| Yale | 740-800 | 720-770 | 6% | ||
| UCLA | 650-790 | 650-740 | 12% | ||
| USC | 690-790 | 670-740 | 11% | ||
| U of Michigan | 690-780 | 670-750 | 23% | ||
| NYU | 690-790 | 660-740 | 16% | ||
| UC Irvine | 600-750 | 570-670 | 27% | ||
| Emory | 690-790 | 670-740 | 16% | ||
| Boston University | 690-790 | 650-720 | 19% | ||
| University of Redlands | 530-630 | 540-640 | 76% | ||
As you can see, the SAT scores of students who’ve been accepted to these schools fall within a pretty big range. So, what are you supposed to make of this?
Well, this means you have some wiggle room when it comes to what a good score is on the SAT. And because these numbers are available for pretty much every school and university, it also means you can get a pretty good sense of where you fall in the overall applicant pool (this is a really helpful resource that lets you search schools and find their admission statistics).
How to figure out your goal SAT score
Since the average composite SAT score is 1060, anything above this is considered an above average SAT score. But your goal SAT score really depends on the schools you’re applying to.
So, you need to build your college list, and this is an excellent resource to help you do that (if we do say so ourselves).
Once you’ve narrowed your list (and just to be clear, 50 potential schools probably isn’t that narrow), you can access the school’s information about who they admit.
For that, we recommend a really cool database called the Common Data Set (and here’s a guide to how to use the Common Data Set when you’re building your college list). The Common Data Set is an initiative aimed at making college admission statistics (like SAT scores) more transparent and easier to access.
Did you just say to yourself, “Wait! They’re trying to make things EASIER?” They really are! Take advantage of this resource!
What is the highest SAT score possible?
Finally, we get to a question we can answer in pretty simple terms. A perfect SAT score in terms of straight-up numbers is 1600. That would mean a score of 800 on the math section and 800 on the EBRW section.
But we don’t want you to think you need to strive for perfection. The SAT is a challenging test (in terms of content, time limits, if you’re sitting next to someone who keeps making weird noises). If you earn a perfect SAT score, that’s amazing and we will celebrate that achievement all over the place. But if you don’t earn a perfect SAT score, we’ll still celebrate you because you’re doing what it takes to continue your education. And that’s amazing, too.
What’s a good ACT score?
Like SAT scores, an ACT score that puts you in the 50th percentile or higher of the schools you’re applying to is considered a solid score. You can earn a possible 36 points on the ACT, and the average composite score is around a 20 (for example, in 2022, the US average was 19.8). The higher your score, the higher your percentile, the stronger this part of your application will be.
We should note, however, that many colleges and universities consider a score higher than 21 to be a good score on the ACT. A score of 24 would put you in the top 25% of students who take the test. If you earn a 24 or higher, this can be a competitive score on the ACT.
Similar to SAT scores, a “good” ACT score also depends on where you are applying. Some schools (like the Ivies) would expect a score in the 30s while other schools accept a lot of applicants whose ACT scores fall in the low to mid 20s (like Florida A&M: typical ACT scores are in the 17-23 range).
We wish we could give you a less subjective answer about what are good ACT scores, but the truth is, this is pretty subjective. We CAN tell you that a high ACT score is at least a 24 (but again, many schools set their own threshold for what they consider “good”).
What is a good ACT score in each section?
There are four sections on the ACT—Math, Science, Reading, and English. You can earn a score of up to 36 on each section, and your total (composite) ACT score is an average of these four sections. So, if we’re aiming for a composite score of 24, then you also want to aim for a score of 24 in each section.
There is also an optional Writing section on the ACT, and the scale for this section is 2-12. This score will not figure into your composite ACT score.
To help you figure this out a little better, here’s a chart for you that lists where specific section scores fall in terms of percentile. Remember, the higher score the higher percentile (meaning you’ve scored higher than that percent of people who took the ACT):
| ACT Score | ACT Math Percentile | ACT Science Percentile | ACT English Percentile | ACT Reading Percentile | Composite Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 |
1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 15 |
25 | 22 | 35 | 27 | 26 |
| 24 |
74 | 77 | 75 | 71 | 74 |
| 30 |
94 | 93 | 89 | 86 | 93 |
| 36 |
100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
How to figure out your goal ACT score
Similar to our tips for figuring out your goal SAT score, you can go through the same steps to figure out your goal ACT score: You need to build your college list (here's our step-by-step guide one more time), considering what kind of college experience you want. Many students (and parents) look at college rankings to help them make these decisions, but we really want to caution you against letting a school’s rank determine if it’s the right fit for you.
Several schools have recently withdrawn themselves from consideration for this list, and rankings tell you very little about what your day-to-day life will be. For that, you should look at the school’s website, talk to current students if you can, and be very clear for yourself about what you will most value in a college or university.
You can also check out our Family Handbook for an overview of all the things you can and should think about besides college rankings!
And again, use that Common Data Set we mentioned! This can give you a good overview of the student body at a school you’re considering. Once you’ve gathered this info to help you make your college list, you can then look at the Common Data Set to get an idea of the ACT scores of admitted students.
Test optional & Test Blind/Test Free
“Test optional” and “test blind” are cool developments that we’re really excited about here! They signal a move away from considering standardized test scores as a required part of a student’s application, and more and more schools are jumping on this train.
“Test optional” does indeed mean “optional.” Schools that are test optional will accept SAT or ACT scores if you choose to submit them, but they are not required.
“Test blind” or “test free” schools are those who will not consider standardized test scores at all when it comes to a student’s application.
Making this shift has been huge news in the education world, and schools that have adopted these options have made a pretty bold statement about what they do and do not value.
For a LOT more information about this (including a list of schools that have made this shift), check this guide out!
What is superscoring?
Superscoring lets you pick and choose which SAT and ACT scores you would like to submit as part of your application. (Though be aware that many colleges encourage students to submit all test scores, and some actually require it, so read carefully.) If you take either of these tests more than once, colleges that allow superscoring (heads up: not all colleges do) look at your best scores in each section, even if these come from different tests taken on different days.
For example, if you take the SAT twice, and your scores go up on the Math section but go down on the EBRW section, you can submit your EBRW section from the first time you took the test, and the Math score from your second test.
The thing with super-scoring is that it presumes students will take these very stressful and expensive exams more than once. If you have the means and the mental energy to do this, it’s great you can take advantage of super-scoring.
But many of you can’t take these tests more than once for a number of reasons. Don’t let this worry you! Taking the SAT or ACT more than once doesn’t necessarily ensure a better outcome, and it can be very costly and very time-consuming.
So here’s our advice (which we feel about pretty much everything college-application related)—do your best, make use of the resources you have available to you, and you will end up at a school that fits you.
Special thanks to Jessica B. for writing this blog post.
Jessica has a Ph.D in English from the University of Southern California and teaches English at a Los Angeles-area independent school, where she has also been English department chair and a class dean. Sandra Cisneros is her hero, and she loves books, her awesomely-sarcastic family, the beach, and more books. Oh, and her sweet pitbull/lab mix named Ruby.
Top values: Curiosity, equity, wonder
