Is it suddenly harder to get high score in SAT or were people always lying?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

No, you used the highest for each section to superscore.

DP. Not in my era (with the exception of a few schools).

That’s what all of the “high achievers” did at my HS in NJ in the late 80s. And at an academic summer program that I did.

Your SAT score didn’t refer to your highest single sitting, it was the highest combined.

Not my experience and, if my recollection of those distant days can be trusted, most competitive colleges did not consider “superscore”. They would take the higher total score of your two tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Side question and didn't want to start another SAT thread: Do you subconsciously have a higher expectation for a boy's SAT score versus a girl's? I ask because data show that at the high end (1520+), boys-to-girls ratio is roughly 2:1. Do AOs hold the same expectation? In other words, if a boy and a girl both achieve the same 1550, would you or AOs think of the girl's score as being more impressive?

How do you know this? I’ve never seen recent statistics broken down this way.

Scroll down to "Boys Do Both Better And Worse On The SAT" in a 2025 article at https://aibm.org/research/boys-girls-and-grades-examining-gpa-and-sat-trends/#:~:text=trends%20remain%20clear.-,SAT%20and%20gender,the%20lowest%20(56%25)%20deciles.

Another slightly dated article (2018) reported similar observations: https://msmagazine.com/2018/02/15/highest-performing-women-still-scoring-lower-men-sat/

I have a son who made 1560 on first try and a daughter who superscored to 1530 after 3 attempts and still wants to another shot, to which I'm not sure if it's worth it given the data.

Your daughter is one person, not a statistical profile. High scores are less common among girls but they’re hardly unheard of. My DD scored higher than your DS after working through the “Prep Pros” math book. If your DD wants to take a shot and is willing to do the work, you should support her, not tell her it’s impossible because she’s a girl.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I had one kid taking the SAT in 2022 (when it was on paper) and one who took the digital year. Lots of kids at their private getting over 1500 both years

Average SAT at TJ was around 1520 before the unqualified kids were let in.

TJ still has the highest SAT scores than any other high school in the DMV. C

Why is the TJ average below 1600? The SAT will be mastered by 9th grade tops for my high IQ kid that is actually too smart for TJ.

Sure, Jan.

NJ schools make TJ look THIRD TIER

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had one kid taking the SAT in 2022 (when it was on paper) and one who took the digital year. Lots of kids at their private getting over 1500 both years

Average SAT at TJ was around 1520 before the unqualified kids were let in.

TJ still has the highest SAT scores than any other high school in the DMV. C

Why is the TJ average below 1600? The SAT will be mastered by 9th grade tops for my high IQ kid that is actually too smart for TJ.

Sure, Jan.

Sorry my kid is smarter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

No, you used the highest for each section to superscore.

DP. Not in my era (with the exception of a few schools).

That’s what all of the “high achievers” did at my HS in NJ in the late 80s. And at an academic summer program that I did.

Your SAT score didn’t refer to your highest single sitting, it was the highest combined.

Not my experience and, if my recollection of those distant days can be trusted, most competitive colleges did not consider “superscore”. They would take the higher total score of your two tests.

My competitive college did.

That’s how it was reported in HS, on apps, and how we generally discussed our scores.

[Anonymous]

This thread is making me feel like my kid is holding onto a golden ticket with a 35 ACT single test, not superscored. Mostly applying to UCs, so that score won’t even help. Is it really that big of a deal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me feel like my kid is holding onto a golden ticket with a 35 ACT single test, not superscored. Mostly applying to UCs, so that score won’t even help. Is it really that big of a deal?

My kid also had 35 in single sitting. College counselor at his HS didn’t seem that jazzed but he got into his first choice school early but didn’t apply to an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Nah my kid has a 1550 after two sittings and is only a junior. People are mad for some reasons, but there are plenty of kids with good scores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me feel like my kid is holding onto a golden ticket with a 35 ACT single test, not superscored. Mostly applying to UCs, so that score won’t even help. Is it really that big of a deal?

Having an SAT to back it up would be...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only about 8k kids a year get a 1560+ without superscoring. Pretty shocking.

There are, what, 4 million high school grads per year and just under 2 million SAT test takers?

And yet it feels like 7,999 of their parents post on DCUM.

And THEN they’ll say “our circle of friends and neighbors are brilliant with high IQs and it’s genetic”.

I don’t think too many people got tutoring or classes decades ago. One and done and you moved on.

I read an article on athletes and US leaders SAT or ACT scores. Athletes were in the average range of 900 to 1150. There genius is physical and mental not all in books.

Bush Jr got 1206, Bill Clinton 1032, John Kerry 1190. Families with Bush and Kerry were important. Clinton had other talents.


Unless your kid goes to a magnet school for science, math and technology it’s doubtful too many students got over 1500. Regular private school not so many.

Kids superscored back in the 80s. Maybe not quite as much as these days, but most likely of the high achievers from my HS took it at least twice.

That’s wasn’t a superscore. That was taking it twice. Your first score was your first score, your second was your second. You picked the highest to submit - didn’t get to pick and choose.

No, you used the highest for each section to superscore.

DP. Not in my era (with the exception of a few schools).

That’s what all of the “high achievers” did at my HS in NJ in the late 80s. And at an academic summer program that I did.

Your SAT score didn’t refer to your highest single sitting, it was the highest combined.

Not my experience and, if my recollection of those distant days can be trusted, most competitive colleges did not consider “superscore”. They would take the higher total score of your two tests.

My competitive college did.

That’s how it was reported in HS, on apps, and how we generally discussed our scores.

That simply means your college wasn’t actually competitive. Sorry, dummy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me feel like my kid is holding onto a golden ticket with a 35 ACT single test, not superscored. Mostly applying to UCs, so that score won’t even help. Is it really that big of a deal?

My kid also had 35 in single sitting. College counselor at his HS didn’t seem that jazzed but he got into his first choice school early but didn’t apply to an Ivy.

Is he NMSF from VA, DC, MD? That moves the needle much more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe we have SAT score conspiracy truthers now. “My child didn’t score over 1500, therefore all students, parents, and schools claiming that anyone ever scores over 1500 are part of one enormous conspiracy to pretend that my kid isn’t the smartest!!”

What a world.

And I can't believe there are posters on the dcum collage boards that don't understand how standardized tests like the SAT are scored and weighted.

1500% + scores are in the upper, upper 90th percentile range.

Scoring in the 99% on the SAT does not mean your kid got 99% of the questions correct.

It means they scored higher than 99% of the people taking that test that day.

The test scoring is weighted down to individual questions to ensure that if your kid is scoring in the 99% range, then 99% of the scores are going to be lower than 1500.

This means in your DC private school class of 300 students, there is only going to be around 3-4 students scoring above 1500. A fcps high school with 600-700 in a senior class is only going to have 6-10 kids in that above 1500 range.

A 1580 is going to be in the 99.9% range, so you are only going to get one of those kids every year or every couple of years.

Unless the kid is at TJ, there is almost zero chance that your kid's school is going to have "many" kids scoring in the upper 1500s. That is simply impossible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. 1510 and every score above that is a 99th percentile score. Does that mean exactly one percent of students get 1510+ scores?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had one kid taking the SAT in 2022 (when it was on paper) and one who took the digital year. Lots of kids at their private getting over 1500 both years

I bet if you looked at Naviance, you eould see that very few kids at your private school scored over 1500.

Our high performing high school has between 625-725 seniors on a given year. In all the years we have had kids there, naviance only shows around a dozen kids breaking 1500 on the SAT.

There is zero chance that your private school with a senior class of a couple hundred kids has "lots" of kids scoring over 1500.

How could you possible know this? If it’s truly a high-performing high school then I’d guess that at least 10% of the student body would have 1500+ (at least!).

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I applied to college in 1997 and I superscored. I took the SAT twice and my higher math score and higher verbal score were from different dates.

We were intending for our daughter to superscore. She took the test 3 times. But it just so happens that her highest scores both occurred on the same date.

Super scoring is new,,only a few years old.