Does the average SAT score change every year?

Yes. It is recalculated annually from that year's test takers and reported in College Board's annual SAT Suite of Assessments report. Search for that report by name and the current year to get the number for right now.

Is the average SAT score the same as a good SAT score?

No. The national average describes everyone who took the test, while a good score for you depends on the specific colleges you are applying to. A score above average nationally can still be below a selective school's range.

What is the average SAT score for students who apply to college?

That is a different number from the average across all test takers, since not every test taker applies to a four year college, or the same kind of college. The most useful version of this question is answered college by college through each school's Common Data Set, not by a single national figure.

Is the average Math score different from the average Reading and Writing score?

The two section averages can differ from each other in a given year, since they are scored and reported separately. Look for a report that breaks the average down by section rather than relying on the combined total.

What Is the Average SAT Score?

The reader wants a number for the typical or average SAT score, usually to gauge where their own score stands.

Why there is no fixed number

The average SAT score is not a constant. It is recalculated every year from that year's test takers, and it moves depending on things like how many students took the test, which states require it, and shifts in the test itself. A number that was accurate two years ago can be off now, and a number quoted without a year attached should be treated as unreliable.

We are not printing a specific average here because it would be exactly that kind of number: accurate for one year, wrong the next, and impossible to verify from this page alone.

Where to find the current average

College Board releases an annual SAT Suite of Assessments report with the national average score for that testing year, broken down by section and by total. Searching for that report by name and the current year gets you the official current figure directly from the organization that administers the test.

News coverage of the report is also usually easy to find each fall, but the original report is the more reliable source since summaries sometimes round or simplify the numbers.

Average of all test takers versus average at a college

There are really two different averages people mean when they ask this question. One is the national average across everyone who took the SAT that year, which is a broad number that includes students at every stage of preparation and every kind of school. The other is the average, or more precisely the middle 50 percent range, of students admitted to a specific college.

If your real question is whether your score is competitive for a particular school, the national average is the wrong benchmark. Look up that college's Common Data Set, section C9, or its published class profile instead, which gives the 25th and 75th percentile scores of students it actually enrolled.

How the two section scores add up

Whatever the average total turns out to be in a given year, it is built from two section scores that each run from 200 to 800: Reading and Writing, and Math. An average total does not tell you how it splits between the two sections, and the split can matter more than the total depending on what you are applying to study.

If you want to compare your own section scores against a benchmark, look for a report that breaks the average down by section rather than only reporting the combined number.

Why the average is often the wrong question

The average SAT score is a useful fact for understanding the test taking population as a whole, but it rarely answers the question a student actually has, which is usually about a specific college or a specific goal. A score above the national average can still be below what a selective school expects, and a score below the national average can still be fine for a school that does not weight the SAT heavily or does not require it at all.

Practicing toward your own target, rather than toward the average, is what StudyPebble's free daily practice by skill is built for. It will not tell you the current national average, but it will show you exactly which skills are costing you points relative to the score you are aiming for.