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What Is the Average SAT Score?

Posted by Allen Cheng | Mar 30, 2017 1:00:00 PM

SAT General Info

 

You're probably curious about how you stack up against average SAT scores. But what is an average SAT score? There are lots of different ways to look at average SAT scores. How many types of averages are there, and which averages are important for you?
We'll discuss official results for all these questions—and more—and tell you which SAT average scores actually matters for your future.
So what is the average SAT score? That really depends on which group of people you're looking at. We'll look at national averages, averages by gender, by ethnicity, by family income, by high school type, and by state.

National SAT Average Score

For the new 2016 SAT, the College Board calculated SAT score percentiles for two groups: all 11th and 12th grade students (Nationally Representative Sample Percentiles) and college-bound students who typically take the SAT for the last time as 11th- or 12th-graders (SAT User Percentiles).
For the Nationally Representative Sample, the national average SAT score was:

• Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 510
• Math: 510
• Total: 1020

For college-bound SAT users, the SAT national average score was:

• Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 543
• Math: 541
• Total: 1083

Therefore, if you score above a 1020 on the new SAT, you’re above the national average score on the SAT for all seniors. If you score above a 1080, you’re above the national average for college-bound seniors. Keep in mind that when applying to college, you'll be compared to other students who are also applying, meaning that second average (1083) is the more relevant one.

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Average SAT Scores by Gender

Interestingly, the College Board also calculated the average SAT score by gender. These averages are based on college-bound members of the Class of 2016 who took the old SAT, which had three sections and was scored out of 2400:

Gender	Reading	Math	Writing	Total
Male	495	524	475	1502
Female	493	494	487	1479

As you can see, males outperform females on math by 30 points, while females exceed males on Writing by 12 points.
According to a statistical significance test (t-test), the difference in math scores is considered extremely significant (in technical terms, the P value is less than 0.0001, meaning roughly that it is very unlikely this difference is due to chance).
The difference between genders in math test scores has been explored by academic researchers and has been a controversial topic. It should be a goal of the educational system to close this achievement gap between genders.
For reference purposes, I’ve also converted these averages (rounded to the nearest actual score option—so 493 would be rounded to 490) to new SAT scores (out of 1600) using official score conversion charts.

Gender	New Math	Evidence-Based R+W	New Total
Male	550	540	1090
Female	520	550	1070

Average SAT Scores by Ethnicity

When registering for the SAT, the College Board allows students the option to specify their ethnicity. Most students do share their ethnicity, and the College Board has reported the average SAT scores across ethnicity. Again, these are scores on the old version of the test:

Ethnicity	Number Taking	Reading	Math	Writing	Total
American Indian or Alaska Native	7,778	468	471	447	1386
Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander	196,735	529	602	534	1665
Black or African American	199,306	430	425	415	1270
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander	2,371	432	438	423	1293
Hispanic, Latino, or Latin American	355,829	448	453	436	1337
White	742,436	528	533	511	1572
Two or More Races, non-Hispanic	28,460	511	505	488	1504
Other	20,604	496	518	491	1505
No Response	84,070	451	501	452	1404
Total	1,637,589	494	508	482	1484