What is a good score on the SAT?

There are many different answers to this question, with many of them right in their
respective nature. Truth is, a “good score” is relative, and depends on the ultimate goal. This article will help give your child’s scores a practical meaning. The purpose is for parents to know exactly what their child’s scores mean as far as college entry and receiving scholarships! Twenty 4-year colleges in Georgia were chosen, and the SAT scores of the incoming students were compared. The scores shown represent the incoming students who scored in the middle of the pack. What is the “middle of the pack?” These are the students between the 25th and 75th percentile; meaning, if you chose 100 people that entered the school in the Fall of 2018 and ranked them according to SAT scores from the best to worst on a scale of 1-100, the 50 we are talking about would rank in between 25 and 75. In other words, I’m not talking about the worst or the best. Scores were broken down into the total average of all the schools, the average of the top 5 schools, the average of the bottom 5 schools and the average of the middle 10 schools. All data was collected from the National Center for Education Statistics. These scores were taken from Fall 2018. Why? This is the last time SAT scores were mandatory for most colleges in Georgia. In Fall 2026, most colleges in the Georgia will we reverting to pre-covid mandatory SAT testing for admissions. See our article “Is the SAT or ACT Needed in 2026?” for more information on this topic.

Top 5 Schools (no order): UGA, GA Tech, Emory, Mercer, SSU
Bottom 5 (no order): CSU, West GA, FVSU, GA SW, MGSU
Middle 10 (no order): GA State, GA Southern, Kennesaw, Spelman, Valdosta, North
Georgia, Morehouse, Weselyan, SCAD, GCSU.

First thing that should be noticed is that each caliber of school has its own set of “good”
SAT scores. The point is to know exactly how the scores ranks. For a general basis we will look at the average of all the schools. According to this data, the average SAT score of the average incoming freshmen at GA colleges is 1060-1240. The average total SAT score for the 5 schools that scored the highest was between 1280 – 1440. The 10 schools with scores in the middle range between 1040 − 1210. The average score for the 5 schools with the lowest scores is between 890-1090. So, if your score is in the 1200s (a great score btw), how your scores rank (and competitiveness) will be largely determined by the school you attend.