Virginia’s 2017 public high school seniors outperformed their national peers in reading, writing, and mathematics on the revamped SAT. The College Board revised the college admissions test last year to better align the assessment with content students actually learn in high school and skills and knowledge identified as important to success in college.
Of the 51,613 Virginia public school 2017 graduates who took the SAT, 52 percent met or exceeded the SAT’s college-readiness benchmarks in both reading and writing, and mathematics.
Nationwide, 43 percent of SAT takers met the readiness standard on both sections of the test.
The 2017 SAT Virginia All-Schools Mean SAT Scores table below includes the performance of private, parochial and home-schooled students, as well as public high school seniors.
| 2017 Virginia & National All-Schools Mean SAT Scores | ||||||
| Group | Overall | Reading & Writing | Mathematics | |||
| Virginia | Nation | Virginia | Nation | Virginia | Nation | |
| All | 1102 | 1060 | 561 | 533 | 541 | 527 |
| Asian | 1202 | 1181 | 590 | 569 | 611 | 612 |
| Black | 962 | 941 | 493 | 479 | 469 | 462 |
| Hispanic | 1063 | 990 | 542 | 500 | 521 | 489 |
| White | 1149 | 1118 | 586 | 565 | 562 | 553 |
The below totals represent College Board results for public schools only:
2017 Overall 2017 Evidences-Based Reading & Writing 2017 Mathematics
| MLWGS | Virginia | Nation | MLWGS | Virginia | Nation | MLWGS | Virginia | Nation |
| 1421 | 1102 | 1070 | 720.5 | 560 | 538 | 700.5 | 541 | 533 |
The College Board also reported that 48,108, or 67 percent, of the 71,940 Virginia public high school students who took at least one Advanced Placement examination during 2016-2017 earned at least one score of three or higher, generally qualifying for college credit. Virginia public school students took a total of 143,221 AP exams during the year. Within College Board totals, 497 MLWGS students took 1,287 AP exams with 95% obtaining a score of three or higher.
