8/23/25 SAT scores out

[Anonymous]

It's harder to crack a 1500 on the new format.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:up 40 in english after getting same score on all three previous SATs so that is awesome-not at 730, but math down to 720(highest 740), superscore is 1470 , senior female, taking again, has 5/5 in ap calc c, wants engineering

she's going to take the SAT five times?

no the first 690 was psat, so sept will be fourth time.
all of her school friends are taking it 7-8 times, lets not pretend you don't know this

DP.

Is this really common? Most I’ve heard of is 3x.

Seriously effed up if true

It’s a shorter test now with pretty significant disparity in difficulty between test dates. That has led to more kids taking it more times.

DP. I agree that there seem to be significant disparities in difficulty between test dates. I don't know whether that has yet translated to taking it more times, though that would make sense. What is irksome is that the scoring scale is shrouded in mystery with digital testing, whereas the old paper test had the same weight per question, there were limited numbers of test forms, and the scale for the most common form for a test date could often be crowd-sourced.

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:up 40 in english after getting same score on all three previous SATs so that is awesome-not at 730, but math down to 720(highest 740), superscore is 1470 , senior female, taking again, has 5/5 in ap calc c, wants engineering

she's going to take the SAT five times?

no the first 690 was psat, so sept will be fourth time.
all of her school friends are taking it 7-8 times, lets not pretend you don't know this

DP.

Is this really common? Most I’ve heard of is 3x.

Seriously effed up if true

It’s a shorter test now with pretty significant disparity in difficulty between test dates. That has led to more kids taking it more times.

DP. I agree that there seem to be significant disparities in difficulty between test dates. I don't know whether that has yet translated to taking it more times, though that would make sense. What is irksome is that the scoring scale is shrouded in mystery with digital testing, whereas the old paper test had the same weight per question, there were limited numbers of test forms, and the scale for the most common form for a test date could often be crowd-sourced.

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

Unfortunately, I don't think we can draw that conclusion. There is no way to know.

Part of me wonders whether the debut of the digital test by College Board was too easy and now they are trying to ratched up the difficulty. Something similar seemed to happen when the last paper format was new, back in 2016 when College Board took over writing of questions from ETS - seemed easier at first and then in the last year before digital, got a little more difficult. At least with the paper version, the availability of circulating QAS tests allowed for a wider variety of practice. It really stinks to the extent that there is no official practice test that as difficult as August (per my kid), and at best maybe only one or two practice tests are close in difficulty, with practice test scoring not predictive of actual test results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:up 40 in english after getting same score on all three previous SATs so that is awesome-not at 730, but math down to 720(highest 740), superscore is 1470 , senior female, taking again, has 5/5 in ap calc c, wants engineering

she's going to take the SAT five times?

no the first 690 was psat, so sept will be fourth time.
all of her school friends are taking it 7-8 times, lets not pretend you don't know this

DP.

Is this really common? Most I’ve heard of is 3x.

Seriously effed up if true

It’s a shorter test now with pretty significant disparity in difficulty between test dates. That has led to more kids taking it more times.

DP. I agree that there seem to be significant disparities in difficulty between test dates. I don't know whether that has yet translated to taking it more times, though that would make sense. What is irksome is that the scoring scale is shrouded in mystery with digital testing, whereas the old paper test had the same weight per question, there were limited numbers of test forms, and the scale for the most common form for a test date could often be crowd-sourced.

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

Unfortunately, I don't think we can draw that conclusion. There is no way to know.

Part of me wonders whether the debut of the digital test by College Board was too easy and now they are trying to ratched up the difficulty. Something similar seemed to happen when the last paper format was new, back in 2016 when College Board took over writing of questions from ETS - seemed easier at first and then in the last year before digital, got a little more difficult. At least with the paper version, the availability of circulating QAS tests allowed for a wider variety of practice. It really stinks to the extent that there is no official practice test that as difficult as August (per my kid), and at best maybe only one or two practice tests are close in difficulty, with practice test scoring not predictive of actual test results.

*ratchet

[Anonymous]

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

It is supposed to be the case, though that is more complicated now that different questions have different weights. It shouldn't be the case that some students end up having large point drops (>60 pts) from test to test, with months of prep in between.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

It is supposed to be the case, though that is more complicated now that different questions have different weights. It shouldn't be the case that some students end up having large point drops (>60 pts) from test to test, with months of prep in between.

Forgot to add, there are examples on reddit of students whose scores dropped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

They do. These moms are mad bcs they can’t believe their kids got a 1440 after just assuming their kid would get a 1560

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

They do. These moms are mad bcs they can’t believe their kids got a 1440 after just assuming their kid would get a 1560

DP. Huh? I haven’t seen anyone post anything like that. Most people are posting that they’re completely fine with their kids’ sub-1400 scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

They do. These moms are mad bcs they can’t believe their kids got a 1440 after just assuming their kid would get a 1560

Who are you kidding? We are thrilled with our child's 1440! PSAT was in the 1100s, older sibling barely cracked 1200 so, no, we had no 1500+ expectations.

You live in a bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It seems that the August test was a particularly difficult one. Does this mean that September and October upcoming are likely to be a little easier overall?

I thought they were supposed to adjust the scores to account for the variance in difficulty of the test. Is that not the case?

It is supposed to be the case, though that is more complicated now that different questions have different weights. It shouldn't be the case that some students end up having large point drops (>60 pts) from test to test, with months of prep in between.

And yet it’s been like that for 20 years. Did you think in the past scores only went up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's harder to crack a 1500 on the new format.

no, it's not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Senior disappointed as they consistently score about 50 points lower in the room than at home. This was third time and they seem to have maxed out at a 1450 - obviously not terrible but they've studied hard.

This is my DS exactly. Hard to see him so disappointed because he’s such a great kid. He’s feeling some schools are out since he can’t crack 1500.

Same here. Can’t crack it, still in lower 1400s and having to decide whether to submit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3rd test, 1410, super score 1430. This is a super high achieving kid with a perfect GPA with rigorous courses. I am proud but admittedly seeing all these high score of course makes me wonder if it’s not good enough. She has a range of schools she’s applying to, one big reach and I don’t think she cares about that one as much.

I don’t think she has the steam to do it again, but I’ll ask.

I hate that there’s so much riding on this test.

SAME here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Senior disappointed as they consistently score about 50 points lower in the room than at home. This was third time and they seem to have maxed out at a 1450 - obviously not terrible but they've studied hard.

This is my DS exactly. Hard to see him so disappointed because he’s such a great kid. He’s feeling some schools are out since he can’t crack 1500.

Same here. Can’t crack it, still in lower 1400s and having to decide whether to submit.

So, have him take it again.