Is a 1200 a Good SAT Score?
If you’ve just finished high school or are going to finish it in the upcoming months, the next part of your life surrounds college applications. With so many of your peers and other students alike applying to various universities, the race is as tough as it can get. The admission committees are also prepared to screen candidates based on their own university’s criteria.
SAT score is also another criterion for university admissions. If you’ve scored 1200 on your SAT and are looking for universities to apply to, you might be asking: is a 1200 a good SAT score? The answer will depend on your choice of school, and whether or not you match their expectation of SAT scores.
This guide will explain everything you need to know about a SAT score of 1200 and what colleges you can apply to with a SAT score of 1200 (And also the ones you can’t!)
What percentile does a SAT score of 1200 lie in?
Before we tell you the percentile, you should know that the percentiles are different each year, depending on how many people take the test yearly and what SAT scores they’re able to achieve.
However, according to statistics, on a national average, a score of 1200 will land you in the top 76th percentile throughout the whole country.
This implies that among the 2 million people who appear for the test all over the US, around 550,000 scored marks equal to you or higher, while the remaining scored lower than you on average.
There’s also other evidence for how good a SAT score of 1200 is: it puts you at a competitive advantage for approximately 1100 schools, falling short of around 300 only. This means that the score is good enough for you to get into 78% of all schools, colleges, and universities in the US.
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What schools can you apply to with a score of 1200?
First, we have a list of the top ten schools that will be willing to accept you very easily with a score of 1200, according to the admission chance percentages, SAT averages, and other features. These are the schools that you should apply to in order to have a high probability of getting in.
| School | SAT average | SAT range | Acceptance rate | Admission chance |
| University of Kentucky | 1210 | 1083-1330 | 94% | 94% |
| Penn State Main Campus | 1250 | 1140-1360 | 92% | 90% |
| Arizona State University | 1210 | 1100-1320 | 88% | 87% |
| University of Arizona | 1250 | 1120-1370 | 87% | 84% |
| Michigan State University | 1210 | 1100-1320 | 83% | 82% |
| University of Alabama | 1220 | 1070-1370 | 79% | 78% |
| University of Hawaii | 1190 | 1080-1290 | 70% | 72% |
| University of Tennessee | 1260 | 1170-1340 | 75% | 66% |
| Auburn University | 1240 | 1160-1320 | 71% | 64% |
| Purdue University | 1310 | 1190-1430 | 69% | 55% |
As you can see from the table and the data above, the SAT average for these colleges lies between 1210-1310, meaning that their students have consistently been scoring in that range over the subsequent years.
The SAT range data in the second column, however, poses more hope for people with a 1200 score. According to the accumulated data, the score 1200 lies much closer to the above-mentioned universities’ upper limits, with some of these places having an even higher cutoff, making for a healthy competitive environment. This gives you a more than fair chance, since your SAT score of 1200 lies closer to the upper limits.
The majority of these schools are top-ranking in their respective towns or states, have a high acceptance rate, and a 55%-94% probability of you securing admission with a score of 1200. This means that these schools have a good overall reputation and academic integrity, so these schools should definitely be considered if you’re looking for a school to apply to.
What schools is it difficult to get into with a score of 1200?
We’ve told you about the ten universities which are easier to get into with a score of 1200, however, there are a few universities that have a higher SAT score requirement and will be a bit tougher to get into if you’re aiming to base your application off of the SAT score you currently have: 1200.
Here, we’ve chosen 10 of these schools in accordance with their admission chance percentages. Aiming for admission here is a bit of a long shot.
| School | SAT average | SAT range | Acceptance rate | Admission chance |
| University of California Santa Cruz | 1260 | 1160-1360 | 59% | 49% |
| Texas Christian University | 1240 | 1130-1350 | 54% | 48% |
| University of Denver | 1300 | 1200-1390 | 64% | 48% |
| University of South Florida Main Campus | 1240 | 1140-1330 | 49% | 43% |
| San Diego State University | 1200 | 1090-1300 | 38% | 39% |
| Howard University | 1190 | 1080-1290 | 35% | 37% |
| CUNY Hunter College | 1260 | 1170-1340 | 46% | 36% |
| Florida State University | 1260 | 1180-1340 | 37% | 27% |
| University of Central Florida | 1260 | 1170-1350 | 36% | 27% |
| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | 1260 | 1140-1380 | 20% | 15% |
All these institutions are even more well-known than the ten schools we listed before, so you can understand why they’re a bit tougher to get admission into with a SAT score of 1200, especially since their SAT thresholds start from 1140 and end at 1290. This limits your chances of getting into these schools and being considered for a place in one of their programs.
The chances of getting accepted at these universities, for someone with a mark of 1200, don’t exceed 49%, with their acceptance rates also being lower than 65%. Thus the likelihood of getting admission here is low, although not unthinkable.
Is there a need for me to take the SAT again if I get a 1200 score?
1200 is a very decent score for a first attempt, so you really shouldn’t feel bad about not being able to do really well on your first attempt. However, if you feel the need to improve that score, you may retake your SAT at the nearest convenience.
If your choice of school does not accept a person with a 1200 SAT score, for example, schools like Harvard or MIT, then you should definitely try to get a better score in order to increase your odds of getting into your dream university and availing yourself the chance to study there.
Final thoughts: Is a 1200 a Good SAT Score?
Is a 1200 a good SAT score? 1200 is generally considered a very good SAT score lying in the 76th percentile. With this score, there are a lot of schools you can get into, specifically because their SAT score criteria align with the score you got.
Despite that, there are some schools that have more stringent SAT score requirements, in which case you will have to improve your SAT scores. In this article, we listed 10 schools in each category: easy to get in, and difficult to get in.
We hope you found this article useful and that it makes your decision-making process easier. So what are you waiting for? Apply away!
