THE SAT TEST
What you need to know about the new SAT
Why do colleges need to see my SAT scores? Aren't my grades and SAT Subject Test scores enough?
Many colleges use your SAT scores to help them assess your readiness to do tough college work. Although the SAT does not assess broad subject knowledge, it provides a universal benchmark that your high school transcript canât. It assess skills that are essential to success in a competitive liberal-arts college: written argumentation, critical reading, and mathematical analysis.
Competitive colleges need the SAT because course grades are, unfortunately, far from objective measures of your academic ability. Teachers rarely give out grades consistently and without bias. We all know that every school has easy graders and hard graders. Also, many teachers occasionally inflate or deflate grades for reasons unrelated to intellectual ability, like "effort" or personal preference. Even when objective standards are used, they vary widely from teacher to teacher and school to school. Achievement tests like AP exams and SAT Subject Tests are more objective, but they are designed to assess subject knowledge, which can be easily forgotten, rather than basic reasoning skills, which determine broader academic ability. Subject knowledge is effective only when it is incorporated into a meaningful and robust way of solving problems. The SAT, although not perfect, does a good job of measuring how well you reason under pressure, an important academic and life skill.
How is the SAT scored?
Each of the three SAT sections (Critical Reading, Math and Writing) is scored on a scale from 200 to 800. The median (50th percentile) score for each section is usually between 490 and 530.
Each scaled score is based on a raw score for that section. This raw score increases by 1 point for every correct answer, and decreases by ¼ point for every wrong answer (except for the "grid-in" math questions, for which there is no penalty for wrong answers). If you skip a question, your raw score remains the same.
Do I have to take SAT Subject Tests?
The SAT Subject Tests are one-hour subject area tests. They are offered in most academic subjects, like mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, history, languages, and so on. Some colleges do not require you to submit any SAT Subject Test scores, while others may require you to submit up to three SAT Subject Test scores. (But you may submit more than three if you wish.) If you are planning to apply to highly competitive colleges, you should plan to take three or more.
If you believe you have academic strengths that are not shown by your class grades, the SAT Subject Tests are an excellent way to show colleges those strengths.
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