SAT scores dip slightly in U.S.

Published 10:42 pm Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Average math and reading SAT scores nationwide fell four points for the high school class of 2007 to their lowest mark since 1999. In Washington state, the same scores fell two points.

Last spring’s graduating seniors scored on average 502, out of a possible 800 points, on the critical reading section of the country’s most popular college entrance exam, down from 503 for the class of 2006 nationally. Math scores fell three points from 518 to 515.

This year’s declines follow a seven-point drop last year for the first class to take a lengthened and redesigned SAT, which included higher-level math questions and eliminated analogies. The College Board, which owns the exam, insisted the new exam wasn’t harder and attributed last year’s drop to fewer students taking the exam a second time. Students typically fare about 30 points better when they take the exam again.

The College Board’s score report did not offer an explanation why this year’s scores were even lower, but it did note that a record number of students — just short of 1.5 million — took the test.

In Washington, 53 percent of students took the SAT, one percentage point lower than a year earlier, and the average scores were 526 in reading and 527 in math, each down one point from 2006. The state’s average scores were the highest among states in which more than 30 percent of eligible students took the test.

While the growing number of test-takers is considered a sign more people are interested in college, it can also weigh down average scores, because the pool of test-takers expands by including, on average, more lower-scoring students.

The number of black students taking the SAT rose 6 percent, and the number of test-takers calling themselves “Other Hispanic, Latino or Latin American” (a group that does not include Puerto Ricans or Mexican Americans) rose more than 25 percent.

Average scores also slipped from 497 to 494 on the writing portion of the SAT, which debuted with the class of 2006. Many colleges are waiting to see results from the first few years of data on the writing exam before determining how to use it.

In Washington, the writing score was 510, a one-point decline.