SAT scores: what’s good, and how they’re worked out

The score range: from 400 to a perfect 1600

A perfect score is 1600: 800 in each section. It’s rare. In the class of 2026, 691 students scored 1600, about 0.04% of everyone who took the SAT.

If you’ve heard of a 2400 SAT, that’s the old test. Its total ran from 600 to 2400, made of Critical Reading, Writing and Math, each out of 800. College Board has concordance tables that turn old scores into today’s 400 to 1600 scale.

Your online score report shows both section scores and the total, your percentiles and how you did in each content domain.

How are SAT scores calculated?

There’s no simple table that turns a number of right answers into a score. The digital SAT uses a method called item response theory: it looks at which questions you got right, how hard they were and how likely it is you guessed. So two students with the same number right can get different section scores.

The test also adapts. Your first module in each section decides whether the second one is harder or easier, and your score uses every question from both. Each module has 2 pretest questions that don’t count, but you can’t tell which ones they are, so treat every question as if it counts.

College Board says that for most students, guessing is better than leaving a question blank, especially once you can rule out a choice or two.

Is there an SAT score calculator?

Not an exact one. Because of the way SAT scores are worked out, any online SAT score calculator can only estimate. The closest thing to a real score is a full-length practice test in Bluebook, which gives you a score afterward in My Practice.

SAT percentiles: is 1200 a good score?

A percentile tells you what share of test takers scored the same as you or lower. College Board’s user percentiles in the table are based on the real scores of students who graduated in the past three school years.

So a 1200 is at the 75th percentile: you did as well as or better than 3 out of 4 students who took the SAT. A 1000 sits just under the middle.

Average SAT scores for the class of 2026

1,954,833 students in the class of 2026 took the SAT. Their average total was 1045: 528 in Reading and Writing and 517 in Math. Students who only took it on a weekend averaged 1179.

42% met College Board’s readiness benchmark in both sections: 480 in Reading and Writing and 530 in Math. Students who hit both have a 75% chance of at least a C in related first-semester college courses.

College Board also publishes a report for each state, with that state’s averages.

So what score should you aim for?

College Board puts it simply: a good SAT score is one that helps you get into a college you want to go to. Each college sets its own expectations, and a score that’s average at a very selective college can be strong somewhere else.

Look up the score range each college on your list reports for the students it admits, and aim for the middle of it or higher. Some colleges superscore, which means they take your best section scores from different test dates. Your grades, essays and activities count too.

Colleges also differ on whether they want scores at all. Some require them, and some are test-optional, so you choose whether to send yours. Check each college’s admissions page.

ACT to SAT: what your score lines up with

College Board and ACT publish official concordance tables that match scores on the two tests. They date from 2018 and are the ones College Board still links to in October 2026. A concorded score is an estimate, give or take about 80 points on the SAT, so don’t treat it as an exact conversion.

PSAT scores and the SAT scale

The PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 are scored from 320 to 1520, and the PSAT 8/9 from 240 to 1440. They share one scale with the SAT, so a 500 in Math means the same level on the PSAT as on the SAT. That makes a PSAT score a fair guide to where you’d land on the SAT if you took it the same day.