SAT Score Report: Can someone explain what this means?

Test Preparation
1

My SAT score report showed two separate percentile scores for my Total Score on the new SAT:

  1. Nationally Representative Sample Percentile

  2. Your SAT User Percentile - National

It indicates that the “SAT User Percentile” (#2 above) is based on college-bound students. But how does that differ from the those in the Nationally Representative Sample Percentile (#1 above)? Aren’t both percentile groups made up of college-bound students?

2

No, 1) includes students/juniors who are not considering going to college, so ignore the higher percentile.

3

There are a fair number who take the SAT for other purposes, such as applying for high school scholarships. D first took it as a 7th grader, for example. I’m a bit surprised that the numbers are big enough to affect the percentiles, but that was over 10 years ago,so those numbers (like everything else it seems) may have grown.