Georgia SAT scores fall yet stay above national average

In a reflection of the ongoing impact of COVID-19, Georgia students’ SAT scores fell this year as more students took the test.

The average statewide score was 1052, down 25 points from 1077 in 2021, according to numbers released by the state Wednesday.

That’s a drop of 2% but it’s a modest gain over the performance in 2020, the year the pandemic started. The average score that year was 1043, the Georgia Department of Education said.

The agency also reported that test participation increased over 2021. The rise in the percentage of testers — 51% of the class of 2022 versus 38% of the class of 2021 — could have influenced the outcome, given the broader range of ability reflected in a larger testing group. The rate was 64% in 2020.

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State School Superintendent Richard Woods noted that the state’s average 2022 score was above the national average of 1028, for the fifth time in a row. His agency didn’t report the national participation rate.

Here are the mean SAT scores in some of metro Atlanta’s largest school districts:

Forsyth 1172

Cobb 1111

Fulton 1101

Gwinnett 1097

Cherokee 1091

DeKalb 1000

Atlanta 947

Clayton 939

Source: Georgia Department of Education.

About the Author

Ty Tagami

Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.

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