Created by educators to democratize access to higher education, the SAT® is a highly reliable standardized measure of college readiness used in the admission process at nearly all four-year, not-for-profit undergraduate colleges and universities in the United States.
About the SAT
- The SAT tests the academic skills and knowledge that students acquire in high school. It also shows how well students can apply their knowledge, a factor that educators and researchers agree is critical to success in college course work.
- Nearly three million high school students take the SAT each academic year.
- The SAT is consistently shown to be a fair and valid predictor of first-year college success for all students. A study including data from more than 100 colleges and universities demonstrates that the best predictor of college success is the combination of SAT scores and high school grades.
- Most students take the SAT once or twice, and the College Board does not recommend that students take the SAT more than twice. There is no evidence to support the idea that taking the SAT more than twice results in significant score gains.
- Most students take the SAT for the first time during their spring semester of their junior year and test again during the fall semester of their senior year.
- In addition to admission, many colleges use the SAT for course placement and scholarships.
Administrations
- The SAT is administered seven times a year in the United States and six times per year internationally.
- The SAT is given at approximately 6,000 test centers located in more than 170 countries.
Registration Fee and Waivers
- The regular registration fee for the SAT is $49. Registration fee includes four free score sends.
- In keeping with its mission to connect students to college success and opportunity, the College Board provides SAT fee waivers to low-income high school students in the United States, U.S. territories and U.S. commonwealths for whom exam fees would present an unnecessary barrier in the college-going process.
- More than 20% of students in the 2011 cohort who took the SAT used fee waivers. Overall, the College Board granted more than $37 million in fee waivers and related services to qualifying students during the 2010-11 school year.
Test Content
- The SAT takes 3 hours and 45 minutes.
- Each section of the SAT is scored on a 200-800 point scale. The highest possible composite score on the SAT is 2400 (800 in critical reading; 800 in mathematics; 800 in writing).
- The SAT consists of 10 separately timed sections:
- Three sections test critical reading (70 minutes total)
- Three sections test mathematics (70 minutes total)
- Three sections test writing (60 minutes total)
- One variable (unscored) section tests critical reading, mathematics or writing (25 minutes total)
- The SAT includes three kinds of questions:
- Multiple-choice questions
- Student-produced responses (mathematics only)
- Essay question
Test Preparation
- The SAT measures what students have learned in school and their ability to succeed in college-level courses. The best way to get ready for the SAT is to do well in school, take challenging courses, study hard and read as much as possible. There are no tricks or shortcuts to preparing for the SAT.
- Research continues to show that short-term, for-profit test-prep courses don't increase test scores significantly, and such courses can't replace years of solid work in the classroom. The best way for students to get ready for the SAT is to take rigorous, challenging courses in high school and to become familiar with the test.
- The College Board offers a number of free and low-cost tools at http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice to help students familiarize themselves with the test.