List of Average SAT Scores at 50 Colleges and Universities

<p>I got the stats off of the CB website, which I mentioned in the post were outdated themselves (albeit less so than the post on the first page of this thread); it’s more like 2006-2008? than 2007-2010. CB’s data is almost always outdated, but it would’ve been a hassle to visit each college’s individual website.</p>

<p>Everary - thanks, but I guess I didn’t ask my question clearly. When I go to the CB site I see the 25-75% range, but not an average. Am I looking at the wrong page? If you could copy and paste the url for the exact page you are looking at for any given college, it would be appreciated. Thanks.</p>

<p>Oh, I just took the average (the 50th percentile) of each section with a calculator and added the sections together.</p>

<p>And somehow I didn’t notice his post earlier, but standrews makes a good point.</p>

<p>Technically taking the average of that range is not mathematically the same as the true average, except by coincidence, but I will grant you that it won’t be way off. The most discrepency I have ever seen is 20 points, but the vast majority of time it is no more than 5-10, very much like the calculation for the writing score mentioned above.</p>

<p>Yes, standrews is correct, so it depends on what you want to know, what you are trying to get at. If one is trying to see how strong the competition for admittance is you would want to see the average SAT for the applicant pool, if you want to see what your peer group would look like at a certain school you want the admitted student pool.</p>

<p>Presumably the CB gets that data from the common data sets, which only specify 25th and 75th percentiles of the various test scores for enrolled students. Do any colleges publish data other than those (average, stats for applied students, etc.)? It would be interesting to see some.</p>

<p>how about Rice? and UCB?</p>

<p>no way USC is 2135. the range is 1990-2210 average should be around 2100</p>

<p>Yeah, the math is very unclear to me.</p>

<p>I don’t even know where that USC range comes from. Their [common</a> data set](<a href=“Institutional Research, Assessment, and Analytics - Institutional Research, Assessment, and Analytics | University of South Carolina”>Institutional Research, Assessment, and Analytics - Institutional Research, Assessment, and Analytics | University of South Carolina) doesn’t give percentiles for the SAT writing score. Also, assuming CR = writing, the 25-75 range would be 1620 - 1730.</p>

<p>Oops, wrong college (that was South Carolina)</p>

<p>Hmmm, actually can’t easily find the data for USC…</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/0910/FreshmanProfile2009.pdf[/url]”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/0910/FreshmanProfile2009.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>this is the data im looking at</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You’re correct; I checked CB and turns out it’s actually 2035.</p>

<p>are you sure? from my experiences CB is always 1-2 years outdated</p>

<p>^ The average is on the commonapp</p>

<p>Just search colleges go to admissions and it will be they’re</p>

<p>^^^^ thank you i never knew common app had admission stats. I followed your directions and i still cant find them can you give me a link?</p>

<p>The average is NOT on the common data set (which is what I think you meant instead of common app), just the same 25-75% ranges, along with the % that scored 700-800, 600-700, etc.</p>

<p>For example: <a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/pdfs/cds2009_2010_final.pdf[/url]”>This Page Has Moved; See data set C9 on page 10.</p>

<p>^That’s true. Also, U of Southern California apparently doesn’t participate in the common data set publication. @ENT, the correct comparison data to use from that pdf you posted is 1930-2150, since the CDS only considers enrolled students. That makes for an average at USC of roughly 2040. So, the CB data in this case seems accurate.</p>

<p>tulane accepted me with a 28 act</p>

<p>I wish colleges just out-and-out reported medians, the way they used to. My DH has a College Board SAT practice book from way back in the late '60s, when he was applying to colleges. It has a list of the median SAT scores for admitted students from a bunch of top colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. They’re <em>all</em> in the 600s (whether Verbal or Math). </p>

<p>I find it really hard to believe that kids today are so much smarter or better informed than kids in the '60s. In fact, I’m willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that just the opposite is true.</p>

<p>Taking the average of the 25th and 75th percentile scores will give you a very good estimate of the median. I have to admit, though, it is hard to understand why the common data set items do not include the median.</p>

<p>Also note that you really can’t compare medians from the 60s to medians today, for a number of reasons. Primary is that the SAT scoring scale was re-centered in 1995 and most scores today are comparable to a lower score from pre-1995, especially in verbal.</p>

<p>For example, the range of pre-1994 verbal scores of 600-700 corresponds to a range of 1995+ scores of 670-760. For a complete chart, see [this</a> College Board link](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/equivalence-tables/sat-score]this”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/equivalence-tables/sat-score).</p>

<p>Other significant reasons not to compare these scores: the approach to the SAT (i.e., number of tests taken, prep, etc.) is quite different today than 40 years ago; many more applicants today for essentially the same number of slots at the top schools allows these schools to be even more selective; etc etc.</p>

<p>@ladydianeski: in 1995, CB “renormed” the scoring of the SAT. Thus a 700 in pre-1995 was much better or harder to acheive than a 700 post-1995. As a result, the number of people who got 1600 in post-1995 is much higher than in pre-1995.</p>