SAT Percentiles

How to read the tables

Two percentiles are published for every score. SAT User compares you with students who took the SAT in the last three graduating classes; this is the figure colleges and scholarship programs use. Nationally Representative compares you with all US 11th and 12th graders, whether or not they took the test, so it runs a few points higher. Scores reported as 99+ are above 99.5% of the group; 1− means below 0.5%.

Total score percentiles (400–1600)

Section score percentiles (200–800)

Landmarks on the scale

• About 1020 is the median: half of test-takers score above it. The class-of-2024 mean was 1024, and a 1050 is the 55th percentile.
• 1200 is the 75th percentile, 1300 the 85th, 1400 the 93rd.
• 1500 is the 97th–98th percentile; 1530+ is the 99th; 1560+ is reported as 99+.
• In the sections, the Math curve is tighter at the top: a 760 is the 96th percentile in Math but the 99th in Reading and Writing, because more strong students max out Math.

SAT percentiles by year

College Board republishes the percentile tables every year, recalculated from the most recent three graduating classes, so a given score drifts by a point or two between editions. The bigger story is the class mean, which fell after 2022 as the test-taking group grew and the Digital SAT arrived. The tables on this page are the current (2025–26) edition; earlier years are shown below for context, from the SAT Suite annual reports.

Two consequences for reading old advice. First, “the average SAT score is 1050” was true for the classes of 2019–2022 and is now about 25 points high; the current average is roughly 1025. Second, because the mean fell, a fixed score such as 1200 ranks slightly higher today than it did in 2019. Percentiles for the pre-2016 SAT (out of 2400) are not comparable at all; if a college’s published range predates 2016, use the grading scale page to interpret it.

Percentile versus admissions

Percentile tells you how you compare with all test-takers; it does not tell you how you compare with applicants to a specific college, who are a much stronger group. A 1400 is a top-7% score nationally and still sits below the middle-50% range at the most selective universities. Use what is a good SAT score to translate a percentile into college fit, and the SAT score calculator to see where a practice test puts you.

Last updated September 2026. Source: College Board, “Understanding SAT Scores”, current edition.