This is a good, and a very common, question! Our answer is simple: Whatever score gets you into the college you want.
It may seem cliché, but it’s the best answer we can give for such a question. The SAT is not a measure of your worth or intelligence. It’s just one part of the complicated decision process admissions officers use to figure out whether or not you’re a good fit for their school. The score you need to get into a particular school may be completely different from the score your friend needs. And, unless you are best friends with the head of admissions, there’s no way to know exactly what that score would be.
A low SAT score can be mitigated by stellar grades or other circumstances, but one thing is for certain: a high SAT score can only help. Select a target range on the SAT (preferably 1500+), pay attention in your prep classes, and practice regularly with Exam Club to ensure you score as high as you possibly can.
Below is a table of the average SAT scores of applicants for the top 25 colleges as ranked by US News. This information was taken from College Board’s College Search and Compare Colleges. Explore the links to learn more about the colleges you’re interested in.
University of Texas – Austin | 1350+ | 31 |
Harvard University | 1550+ | 35 |
Yale University | 1520+ | 34 |
University of Chicago | 1520+ | 34 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 1540+ | 35 |
Vanderbilt University | 1530+ | 34 |
Columbia University | 1500+ | 34 |
Princeton University | 1550+ | 35 |
Stanford University | 1540+ | 35 |
Rice University | 1510+ | 34 |
Johns Hopkins University | 1530+ | 34 |
University of Pennsylvania | 1500+ | 34 |
Duke University | 1530+ | 34 |
Brown University | 1500+ | 34 |
Dartmouth College | 1500+ | 34 |
Carnegie Mellon University | 1500+ | 34 |
Emory University | 1430+ | 33 |
New York University | 1430+ | 32 |
Cornell University | 1480+ | 33 |
Georgetown | 1470+ | 33 |
University of Notre Dame | 1490+ | 33 |
University of Southern California | 1450+ | 33 |
University of Virginia | 1420+ | 33 |
San Jose State University | 1170+ | 26 |
Northwestern University | 1530+ | 34 |
University of Washington Seattle | 1370+ | 30 |