When the College Board last month released the results of this year’s Scholastic Aptitude Test, scores for both the state and Pickens County had dropped marginally, but local officials say they are not concerned as they keep an eye on long-term trends and not individual yearly scores.
Across the state, public, private and home school students on average scored 1460 this year, down six points from 2008. In Pickens, the average score was 1456, down from 1467 in 2008. Of the 124 Pickens students who took the test this year, the average score on the verbal section was 492, 486 on math, and 478 on the writing section. A perfect score on each section is 800, or 2400 overall.
“The small drop is only a concern if it’s a pattern,” said Assistant Superintendent Tommy Qualls. “Every individual class has its own personality. Three years ago we won the Governor’s Award for the biggest improvement in our region, and we’ve kept the bar raised since then.”
While Georgia’s average score fell for the third year in a row, the national average declined by two, at 1509, or 49 points higher than Georgia’s average.
Top performing schools in Georgia include John Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School with an average score of 1744, Northview High School in Fulton County and Walton High in Cobb with 1722, Savannah Arts Academy with 1711, Columbus High School in Muscogee County with 1697, Riverwood High School and Alpharetta High School, both in Fulton County, with 1688 and 1686, respectively.
Qualls said the SAT is just one barometer used to assess a person’s ability to do well in college, and Pickens’ top students can hold their own against top students nationally. Qualls also pointed out that some schools manipulate their average scores by encouraging marginal students to take the ACT, another college assessment test, rather than the SAT.
“We never discourage anyone from taking the SAT and sometimes we have as many as 10-12 students taking it who were not in college prep classes,” he said. “So if you had 10-12 people who may not have done well on the test because they didn’t have those preparatory classes, then it could take 30 people or more to offset that average. I look for a long term trend.”
Qualls said the local system currently does not offer an SAT prep course as part of the curriculum, although at one point it did. Qualls said knowing how to take the test can be as important as what you know, and the state offers a free online SAT prep course.
Qualls said students from larger schools have opportunities to take advanced courses that may not be offered here because of the lack of demand. Locally, PHS students can sign up for advanced placement calculus, English, history, biology and chemistry courses.
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