A 1560 is in the 99th percentile: it beats about 99 of every 100 SAT takers. Among the 400 most-applied-to colleges that report SAT ranges, it's at or above the 75th percentile at 384 of them and inside the middle 50% at 16.
Top 1%: in or above the middle 50% at almost every college.
A 1560 is in the 99th percentile. It's in or above the middle 50% range at nearly every college that reports SAT scores, including the most selective.
At that level the score has done its job. The most selective colleges see many applicants in the 1550s and up, so your courses, essays, recommendations and activities decide what happens next.
For scale: a 1510 is the 98th percentile and a 1600 is the 99th. Check your own estimate with the SAT score calculator, or any score's rank with the SAT percentile calculator.
The middle 50% is the range between the 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores of a college's first-year students. Above the 75th percentile, your score is a strength; inside the range, it's typical; below the 25th, it's a reach that the rest of the application has to make up for.
| College | Middle 50% | Admit |
|---|---|---|
| Cornell University | 1450–1560 | 9% |
| Johns Hopkins University | 1470–1560 | 8% |
| Carnegie Mellon University | 1480–1560 | 14% |
| Dartmouth College | 1440–1560 | 6% |
| Swarthmore College | 1430–1560 | 8% |
| Northeastern University | 1430–1550 | 18% |
| Tufts University | 1440–1550 | 11% |
| Georgetown University | 1410–1550 | 12% |
| College | Middle 50% | Admit |
|---|---|---|
| New York University | 1450–1570 | 13% |
| Columbia University | 1470–1570 | 4% |
| Harvard University | 1480–1580 | 4% |
| University of Pennsylvania | 1480–1570 | 6% |
| Stanford University | 1470–1570 | 4% |
| Duke University | 1470–1570 | 6% |
| Northwestern University | 1470–1570 | 7% |
| Yale University | 1480–1580 | 5% |
Ranges are each college's most recently reported middle 50% for students who submitted scores, from our college database. University of California and Cal State campuses are left out because they don't consider SAT scores. Look up any college with the college SAT lookup.
The SAT reports Reading and Writing and Math separately, 200–800 each. Colleges see both, so the same 1560 can read differently for an engineering program than for an English major.
| Profile | Reading and Writing | Math |
|---|---|---|
| Even split | 780 | 780 |
Almost never worth it. Moving from 1560 to a 1600 changes how a college reads your application very little, and the prep time is better spent on essays and activities.
Retake if:
Keep your 1560 if:
← How good is a 1550? · How good is a 1570? →
Percentiles come from the same SAT percentile table as our percentile calculator. SAT® is a trademark registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, this page.