Despite colleges saying that there are no test score requirements for admission, their admission statistics give us a pretty good idea of what scores students need to get in, and with the return of required standardized testing the score ranges for each college is more important than ever before.
To help students, parents and teachers/counselors better digest this information, we've loaded the score ranges of all major American universities from state schools to Ivy Leagues into a nifty lookup tool.
Instructions
Enter your SAT score from 400 to 1600 to retrieve a list of US universities whose 25th to 75th percentile SAT Score range contains your score.
The score ranges from the tool provide the 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores of admitted students from each college.
We typically recommend students to aim for the 75th percentile score as many students admitted with lower scores typically have some kind of advantage (e.g. legacy or athletic recruitment) or extremely impressive extracurriculars.
SATs are making a comeback, but standardized test scores are far from the only factor colleges look at when evaluating an applicant. School grades (GPA), extracurriculars and application essays are all important factors as well.
GPA, in particular, is important because just like SAT scores, it measures a student's academic performance. Colleges expect that students achieve a similar performance between school grades and test scores. An applicant with very strong SAT scores but a subpar GPA, for instance, could raise red flags because there is a lack of consistency.
Of course, every high school's academic rigour is different, and admissions offers know this. They will use the historic academic performance from past applicants and applicants from schools of similar academic rigour as a benchmark for what the GPA-test score relationship should be.
For more information on the college admissions process, check out our comprehensive college admissions overview.
If your SAT scores are within (or better yet, exceeds) the ranges of your top college choices, congrats! You are one step closer on your college application journey, and you can work on the other academic components discussed above or beef up your extracurricular activities.
If your scores aren't quite within range yet - don't worry! Find out which question types you're struggling with the most and focus your studying there. Check out our 2 Week Study Plan for inspiration on how to schedule your studying.
For more information on specific colleges and their scores, have a look at our in-depth College SAT Score Guides for each university.