SAT Trends over the last 20 years

Test Preparation
1

<p>Hello:</p>

<p>I'm an adult that took the old SATs approx 20 years ago while in High school. I am now interested in the new SAT because my kids will eventually take it.</p>

<p>From what I understand a 1600 is relatively common nowadays. When I was in high school a 1600 was rare -- perhaps only a half-dozen students in the whole country achieved this. Someone told me that its pretty common nowadays to have scores > 700.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any data on the mean SAT trends over time? In particular is there evidence that mean scores have gotten higher?</p>

<p>The reason I'm asking is that I'd like to get a sense of what a 1400 nowadays means (in 1986 a 1400 was a very very high score). To put into perspective, it will help me if I know how much the scores have changed over time.</p>

2

<p>hey yeah a 1400 is considered good but you need a 1500 to be considered really good and well 1550 or higher is just godly.</p>

<p>I hope to achieve "godly" status after I finish JUNE Sats.</p>

3

<p>700 in each section is 95 percentile. 800 is about .5%. Since the population of U.S. is growing, it makes sense that the number of perfect scores are increasing.</p>

4

<p>You may find this of interest:
<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2002/pdf/table2.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2002/pdf/table2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It shows that, while the averages have fluctuated, they haven't really risen that much on time. I agree with confidential's explanation of the increase in high scoreres; more people are testing now, and more people heading to college.</p>

5

<p>But Hamster, that table is almost meaningless without knowing standard deviation.</p>

6

<p>what percentile is a 750 ? (on math)</p>

7

<p>Around 1995, College Board "recentered" SAT scores - essentially changed the way the scales worked. After that, the number of 1600's every year skyrocketed</p>

8

<p>Yeah, it was the recentering that did it. Before, 400 something was the average score for each section... getting a 1400 could get you into any school in the nation, just about. Now, something like 510 is the average for each section. I think I read that an 800 on either section today is like a 710 on the SAT as it was previously centered.</p>

9

<p>Just a note Sgopal, this website is the top percent of people who take the test. While a 700 may seem commen. In math, for example, its in the 93rd percentile. Don't judge scores based on this website.</p>

10

<p>Recentering basically added 100 points to the SAT scores. Your 1400 would be comparable to a 1500 today.</p>

11

<p>Firefly - where did you find out that re-entering data effectively added 100 points to the total score?</p>

<p>I too also heard that scores were somehow re-scaled in 1995, but wasn't quite sure what that meant. I do have some knowledge of statistics. Is anyone aware of any more meaningful data that the CollegeBoard published regarding this?</p>

<p>In particular were the scores normally distributed, and if not were the standard deviations over time fairly similar?</p>

12

<p>As for recentering, these might be interesting:</p>

<p>[The</a> Effects of SAT Scale Recentering on Percentiles<a href=".pdf">/url</a></p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/research/pdf/200211_20702.pdf%5DThe"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/research/pdf/200211_20702.pdf]The&lt;/a> Recentering of SAT Scales and Its Effects on Score Distributions and Score Interpretations<a href=".pdf">/url</a></p>

<p>The CB has a [url=<a href="http://search.collegeboard.com/research/nationalstate/%5Dresearch"&gt;http://search.collegeboard.com/research/nationalstate/]research&lt;/a> site](<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/research/pdf/rs05_3962.pdf%5DThe"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/research/pdf/rs05_3962.pdf) with lots of research and statistics on their tests.</p>