SAT Scoring Basics

Understand how students earn points, how to interpret scores, and ways students can use their scores after the test.

No Penalty for Guessing

On the SAT, students earn points for all questions answered correctly. Encourage your students to give their best answer to every question. Let them know there's no advantage to leaving questions blank.

Interpret Scores

From the K–12 educator reporting portal, educators have access to students' official PDF score reports, and you can share the report with students. In the official score report, students can view the three scores available in a digital SAT—total score, Reading and Writing section score, and Math section score. For each score, the official score report includes:

• The range of possible scores: 400–1600 for total score and 200–800 for section scores.
• The All Tester Percentile of each score: For example, if a student's score is in the 70th percentile, 70% of students taking the SAT in the past three years achieved scores at or below that student's score.

The PDF report also includes graphical depictions of student performance on each of the eight content areas measured on the SAT. Educators can help students use this section to identify content areas to focus on to practice and improve. Students do not need a personal account to get a free tailored study plan with Official SAT Prep on Khan Academy^®.

How Students Can Send Scores

When students take the SAT as part of in-school testing, they have the opportunity to choose up to four colleges, universities, or scholarship programs to receive their scores for free.

Students can make their free selections during testing or within three days after testing. To make or change their selections within those three days, students use their sign-in ticket from the test to sign in to Bluebook™. Then they go to My Tests right Past where the test will be listed and click SAT Score Sends.

Only the scores from the specific test day will be sent. Also, students can't send partial scores from different days. For instance, they can't send a Math score from one test day and a Reading and Writing score from another. When students request that we send their scores to colleges or other organizations during school day testing, we send the scores along with demographic information sufficient for identity matching to those colleges and organizations, who may then use it to support the students' applications to those organizations.

As always, students aged 13 and older may use a personal student account to send additional scores online, for a fee. Learn more about sending scores online.