SAT Score Calculator

The SAT is scored out of 1600. Two sections each contribute up to 800: Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (combined into one section as of the 2024 digital SAT redesign) and Math. Enter your section scores from 200 to 800 each and the calculator adds them, returns the composite, and looks up your percentile against the national pool of test-takers. A composite of 1600 is a perfect score; the national average sits around 1050.

Worked example: Reading and Writing 650, Math 700. Composite is 1350. The percentile lookup returns roughly the 91st percentile, meaning you scored higher than about 91% of all SAT takers that year. That's strong enough for most state universities and for serious consideration at competitive private schools, though Ivy League admissions typically expect 1500+ for a first-look.

1600 is perfect, achieved by under 1% of test-takers each year. 1500+ (top 1%) puts you in the Ivy League conversation. 1400+ (top 5%) is the cut-off for many selective universities (Tufts, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Notre Dame). 1300+ (top 15%) opens up many top public flagship universities (UCLA, UVA, Michigan). 1200 is a solid score for most four-year colleges. 1050 is the national average and clears most state university requirements.

Don't read those bands as guarantees. The SAT is one part of a holistic application that also weighs GPA, course rigor, essays, recommendations and extracurriculars. A 1500 with a weak GPA gets rejected from Harvard; a 1350 with a 4.0 unweighted GPA, a state debate championship and a strong essay can land at Princeton. The score is a hurdle to clear, not a ticket. Use the [US college cost calculator](/us-college-cost-calculator) to plan financially once you have target schools.

Each section is graded independently from 200 to 800, in 10-point increments. Get every question right on Reading and Writing and you score 800; the same on Math gets you another 800, for a 1600 composite. The College Board uses an equating curve that adjusts for difficulty, so two test-takers might answer different numbers of questions correctly but get the same scaled score if their tests had different difficulty levels.

The 800/800 ceiling means you can't compensate for one weak section with a stellar other section if you're aiming for the highest scores. To break 1500, you typically need at least 730 in both sections. If your Math is 800 but Reading and Writing is 600, that's a 1400 composite, which still slips you out of the top tier. Schools like MIT will look at your Math score in isolation; humanities-leaning schools (Yale, Brown) may weight Reading and Writing slightly more, but officially most schools say they look at the composite.

The average student improves by 60 to 90 points after one retake, and by 100 to 150 points after structured prep over 3 to 6 months. The College Board's free official practice tests on Khan Academy give you a realistic baseline. Plan to take the SAT once in spring of junior year, then retake in the fall of senior year if you want to push the score up before applications close in early January.

Most US universities now superscore: they take your highest section score from any sitting and combine them into a personal best composite. So if you got 700 Reading and Writing + 650 Math in March, then 680 Reading and Writing + 720 Math in October, your superscore is 700 + 720 = 1420, even though you never achieved that composite on a single test. Stanford, MIT, Yale and most Ivies superscore. Some, like Caltech (until recently test-optional), don't. Always check the school's specific policy. For grade conversion if you're applying internationally, use the [grade conversion tool](/grade-conversion-tool) to translate your US GPA for non-US universities.