South Carolina Students Outperform Nation on Advanced Placement, SAT Scores Remain Steady

Press Release

The College Board has released national and South Carolina specific results for their SAT and Advanced Placement assessments. South Carolina students again exceeded the nation on eight out of the top ten tested subjects of Advanced Placement exams, and PSAT/NMSQT mean scores for South Carolina 10th and 11th graders outpaced the national average in several categories. Statewide, 23,868 students from the Class of 2022 took the SAT, an increase from the Class of 2021.

“Our goal is for every South Carolina student to graduate prepared for success, and participation and achievement on these assessments are indicators of the strides we’ve made and areas we need to address,” said State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman. “We are encouraged to see increases in participation and see achievement in several areas. Still, there is much more work to be done and these results provide the blueprint on the path to improvement.”

Advanced Placement (AP)

South Carolina saw a slight decrease in the number of AP exams taken and number of students taking exams. However, the state had an increase in the number of exams with scores of 3, 4, or 5.

AP exam scores of 3 indicate a candidate who is qualified to take college-level courses. Scores of 4 indicate someone who is well qualified and a 5 indicates someone who is extremely well qualified. Colleges and universities often grant class credit and use AP scores of three or more to place students in higher course levels.

South Carolina students outperformed the national average in percentage of exams with scores of three or more on eight of the state’s top ten most popular Advanced Placement tested subjects.

SAT

A total of 23,868 South Carolina public school students or 48% of the Class of 2022 took the SAT assessment, a 5.8 percent increase from the year prior.

The SAT relies on two main components: Evidence Based Reading and Writing (ERW) and Math. The Essay section is optional. Scores range from 400 to 1600 overall with 200 to 800 coming from ERW and 200 to 800 coming from Math.

South Carolina’s public school students overall mean score was 1023 compared with the national public school mean of 1028. SC’s mean ERW score was 522 compared to the national mean of 521. The state’s Math average was 501 while the nation’s was 507.

PSAT/NMSQT

South Carolina 10th and 11th graders PSAT/NMSQT mean scores were above the national average in several categories, including 10th grade PSAT/NMSQT ERW (459 mean). 11th graders taking the PSAT/NMSQT outpaced the national scores in all areas with a mean score of 1019 (US: 982), ERW mean of 523 (US: 498), and math mean of 496 (US: 483).

Assessment results can be accessed by visiting https://ed.sc.gov/data/test-scores/

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