Students taking the new SAT need to be able to determine how their scores fit into the competitive landscape of college admission. A new SAT score does not mean the same thing as the same score on the old SAT and must be translated via a concordance. Colleges’ mid-range scores will not be reported as new SAT scores until spring 2018.
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In the meantime, Compass has translated the mid-range of old SAT scores for 100 popular colleges and will be expanding this web resource. You can use these ACT and estimated new SAT ranges to better understand the typical test scores of enrolled students.
Score ranges are for the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile. These scores should not be viewed as cutoffs or qualifying scores.
Expand for Analysis of New SAT's Impact on Scores
One impact of the new SAT is that scores have shifted higher across virtually the entire 200-800 and 400-1600 score ranges. This inflation has also tended to compress the 25th-75th percentile ranges. To use a traffic jam analogy, the highest scores have little place to move at the same time that lower scores keep inching forward. For example, the old SAT range for Critical Reading + Math at Amherst was 1360-1560 but is now 1430-1570. Harvard, where the 75th percentile was already at 1600 for the class of 2015, is projected to have the most significant compression. The university’s range is estimated to go from 1410-1600 to 1480-1600 — there is simply no way that the highest scores can move higher. CalTech, which already had the narrowest range in the country is estimated to move from 1500-1600 to 1530-1600.
Colleges with ranges closer to 600-700 will see the inflationary effect without as much compression. For example, University of California, Santa Barbara is likely to see a change from 1130-1370 to 1210-1440.
It’s important to note that this result is independent of the move from the 600-2400 total score to the 400-1600 total score. The inflationary and “traffic jam” effects are consistent across section, test, and total scores.
The score changes do not imply that it is harder to get into a particular college. They do impact the way that families should think about scores. The traditional shorthands for “what is a good score” were always inadequate, and they now need to be rethought again.
College
New EBRW
25th-75th
Percentile
New Math
25th-75th
Percentile
New SAT Total
25th-75th
Percentile
ACT Composite
25th-75th
Percentile
Amherst College
720-780
710-790
1430-1570
31-34
Arizona State University—Tempe
560-680
550-660
1110-1340
23-28
Boston College
680-750
660-760
1340-1510
30-33
Boston University
650-720
640-760
1290-1480
27-31
Bowdoin College
730-780
710-780
1440-1560
31-34
Brandeis University
670-740
690-780
1360-1520
29-33
Brown University
720-790
720-790
1440-1580
31-34
Bryn Mawr College
680-750
640-760
1320-1510
28-32
Bucknell University
650-720
640-740
1290-1460
28-32
California Institute of Technology
750-800
780-800
1530-1600
34-35
Cal Poly—San Luis Obispo
600-700
600-720
1200-1420
26-31
Cal Poly—Pomona
500-620
510-630
1010-1250
20-27
Carleton College
700-770
690-780
1390-1550
29-33
Carnegie Mellon University
700-770
740-800
1440-1570
31-34
Chapman University
610-700
580-670
1190-1370
25-29
Claremont McKenna College
720-770
700-790
1420-1560
29-33
Colby College
670-740
640-750
1310-1490
28-32
College of William and Mary
680-750
650-760
1330-1510
28-32
Colorado College
680-740
640-740
1320-1480
28-32
Columbia University
730-790
730-800
1460-1590
31-34
Connecticut College
660-730
630-730
1290-1460
28-31
Cornell University
700-780
710-790
1410-1570
30-34
Dartmouth College
710-790
700-790
1410-1580
30-34
Duke University
720-780
730-800
1450-1580
31-34
Emory University
690-750
670-770
1360-1520
29-32
George Washington University
650-730
620-730
1270-1460
27-31
Georgetown University
700-780
690-780
1390-1560
30-33
Grinnell College
680-760
690-780
1370-1540
30-33
Harvard University
740-800
740-800
1480-1600
32-35
Harvey Mudd College
710-770
760-800
1470-1570
33-35
Haverford College
710-780
690-780
1400-1560
31-34
Howard University
550-660
520-630
1070-1290
21-27
Indiana University—Bloomington
570-680
570-690
1140-1370
24-30
Johns Hopkins University
730-780
740-800
1470-1580
32-34
Kenyon College
680-750
630-720
1310-1470
28-32
Lehigh University
640-720
660-760
1300-1480
29-32
Lewis & Clark College
650-710
610-700
1260-1410
27-31
Loyola Marymount University
610-690
580-690
1190-1380
25-30
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
720-780
760-800
1480-1580
33-35
Michigan State University
510-640
560-710
1070-1350
23-28
Middlebury College
690-760
650-760
1340-1520
30-33
Mills College
590-700
530-640
1120-1340
24-30
New York University
670-740
650-760
1320-1500
28-32
Northeastern University
700-760
710-780
1410-1540
31-34
Northwestern University
740-780
740-800
1480-1580
31-34
Occidental College
650-730
620-720
1270-1450
28-31
Pennsylvania State University
590-680
580-700
1170-1380
25-29
Pepperdine University
610-700
570-700
1180-1400
25-30
Pitzer College
660-760
650-750
1310-1510
29-32
Pomona College
710-780
720-780
1430-1560
30-34
Princeton University
730-800
730-800
1460-1600
32-35
Reed College
700-760
640-750
1340-1510
29-33
Rice University
720-780
740-800
1460-1580
32-35
San Diego State University
550-650
540-650
1090-1300
22-28
San Jose State University
500-620
510-630
1010-1250
20-26
Santa Clara University
640-740
640-740
1280-1480
27-32
Scripps College
690-760
640-740
1330-1500
28-33
Smith College
680-750
640-750
1320-1500
28-32
St. Mary's College of California
560-660
560-650
1120-1310
22-27
Stanford University
730-790
730-800
1460-1590
31-35
Trinity College
630-710
600-710
1230-1420
26-30
Tufts University
720-770
720-780
1440-1550
30-33
United States Naval Academy
620-720
630-740
1250-1460
N/A
University of Arizona
530-650
510-640
1040-1290
21-27
University of California—Merced
500-610
500-600
1000-1210
19-24
University of California—Riverside
560-660
550-670
1110-1330
22-28
University of California—Berkeley
670-760
660-780
1330-1540
29-34
University of California—Davis
580-690
580-740
1160-1430
24-30
University of California—Irvine
560-670
570-720
1130-1390
N/A
University of California—Los Angeles
650-750
630-770
1280-1520
25-32
University of California—San Diego
630-720
640-770
1270-1490
26-32
University of California—Santa Barbara
610-710
600-730
1210-1440
24-30
University of California—Santa Cruz
580-690
570-700
1150-1390
23-29
University of Chicago
740-800
740-800
1480-1600
32-35
University of Colorado—Boulder
580-680
570-690
1150-1370
24-30
University of Florida
640-710
610-720
1250-1430
26-31
University of Miami
640-720
630-730
1270-1450
28-32
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
680-750
690-780
1370-1530
29-33
University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill
650-730
630-730
1280-1460
27-32
University of Notre Dame
700-770
710-780
1410-1550
32-34
University of Pennsylvania
720-780
730-800
1450-1580
31-34
University of Puget Sound
610-710
570-690
1180-1400
25-30
University of Redlands
540-640
530-620
1070-1260
22-27
University of Rochester
660-730
660-770
1320-1500
29-32
University of San Diego
600-690
580-700
1180-1390
26-30
University of San Francisco
570-670
560-650
1130-1320
23-28
University of Southern California
680-750
690-780
1370-1530
29-33
University of Texas—Austin
610-710
610-740
1220-1450
25-31
University of the Pacific
550-680
550-690
1100-1370
22-29
University of Virginia
670-750
650-760
1320-1510
29-33
University of Washington
590-700
600-740
1190-1440
36-31
University of Wisconsin—Madison
640-710
650-780
1290-1490
27-31
Vanderbilt University
730-790
750-800
1480-1590
32-35
Vassar College
710-770
690-760
1400-1530
30-33
Wake Forest University
650-730
630-750
1280-1480
N/A
Washington University in St. Louis
730-780
750-800
1480-1580
32-34
Wellesley College
690-760
670-770
1360-1530
29-33
Wesleyan University
680-760
650-760
1330-1520
29-33
Williams College
710-790
700-780
1410-1570
31-34
Yale University
740-800
740-800
1480-1600
31-35
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Data Sources and Methodology
In most cases, we were able to use information directly from the Common Data Sets (CDS) produced by colleges and shared by their institutional research departments. The CDS format is an agreed upon way of reporting information about a college — not just test scores and admission rates. For test scores, the data are based on an incoming group of first-year students. For example, the 2014-15 CDS for a college has statistics on students entering in the fall of 2014 (most of whom graduated high school in 2014). Most of the college guides from major publishers currently use the 2014-15 data. Where possible, we have used the more recent 2015-16 CDS, which has data for students entering fall 2015. When CDS data were not available, we found information from college fact books or other data sources with similar definitions.
We used the College Board’s new SAT to old SAT concordances to translate 25th and 75th percentile scores on the old SAT to comparable scores on the new SAT. This conversion makes certain assumptions about the distribution of scores above and below those values. When old SAT Math scores were available, we concorded them to new SAT Math scores. When new SAT Critical Reading and Writing scores were available, we used the concordance table that translates CR+W to the single 200-800 EBRW score of the new SAT. Some schools do not use or do not report SAT Writing. In those cases, we used the concordance from SAT CR to SAT Reading score (20-40) and then converted it to the 200-800 scale by multiplying by 20. SAT Total (400-1600) scores are the sum of SAT EBRW and SAT Math. This does not necessarily produce the same result as if a school reported the 25th percentile Total score and 75th percentile Total score. However, colleges do not report 400-1600 or 600-2400 score in the Common Data Set, and it has been the practice of most publishers to simply sum the component scores.