To get into a top college you need a good SAT or ACT. In past years, the SAT and ACT scores were key requirements of the college admission process. However, this year, most schools have gone test-optional and many have abandoned standardized testing entirely. This leaves many students wondering if they need to take the SAT or ACT tests to get into top schools and, if so, what score do they need to get in order to get admission into the best universities in the U.S.?

Luckily, this is where student major comes in, to help you have an idea of what is needed.

Do I need an SAT, ACT, or standardized exam score?

ACT/SAT scores are only one part colleges weigh in assessing admissions applications. Other factors colleges consider are academic grades, academic rigor, extracurricular activities, personal qualities, other students at your school compared to you, and how much support your school shows you.

These are just a few factors, and academics and testing are just one part.

In the past, standardized testing, SAT and ACT scores have been vital for admissions assessments. An SAT/ACT score offers universities a yardstick to understand how a student compares with other students at his/her school.

In the past, universities used ACT/SAT scores to determine if a student could handle the academically challenging curriculum being offered.

What is the use of having high ACT/SAT scores?

1. A high score shows that a student can mostly make it through some intense filtering on the part of highly selective universities.

2. Top colleges also use SAT/ACT scores and cutoffs to assign merit aid and scholarship money for top students.

While a lot of students are opting out of SAT or ACT testing and many schools are going test-optional, we still believe universities will still lean to GPA against peers, stellar accomplishments, high achievements, and standout factors among students.

However, due to the fact that many students are still taking the SAT, we decide to share the SAT scores for the top 30 US universities.

SAT Statistics for Top 30 U.S. Universities

University	Location	25th Percentile	75th Percentile
Brown University	Providence, RI	1450	1570
Boston University	Boston, MA	1300	1500
Boston College	Chestnut Hill, MA	1320	1490
California Institute of Technology	Pasadena, CA	1540	1580
Carnegie Mellon University	Pittsburgh, PA	1410	1540
Case Western University	Cleveland, OH	1350	1520
Columbia University	New York, NY	1490	1580
College of William and Mary	Williamsburg, VA	1310	1490
Cornell University	Ithaca, NY	1390	1530
Dartmouth College	Hanover, NH	1430	1560
Duke University	Durham, NC	1315	1570
Emory University	Atlanta, GA	1360	1490
Georgetown University	Washington, D.C.	1320	1520
Harvard University	Cambridge, MA	1470	1570
Johns Hopkins University	Baltimore, MD	1480	1560
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Cambridge, MA	1500	1570
New York University	New York, NY	1360	1500
Northwestern University	Evanston, IL	1440	1540
Princeton University	Princeton, NJ	1380	1540
Rice University	Houston, TX	1440	1560
Stanford University	Stanford, CA	1390	1540
Tufts University	Medford, MA	1410	1540
University of California, Berkeley	Berkeley, CA	1280	1490
University of California, Los Angeles	Los Angeles, CA	1280	1500
University of Chicago	Chicago, IL	1460	1560
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	Ann Arbor, MI	1380	1540
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill	Chapel Hill, NC	1270	1470
University of Notre Dame	Notre Dame, IN	1390	1530
University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia, PA	1370	1520
University of Texas-Austin	Austin, TX	1230	1480
University of Virginia	Charlottesville, VA	1320	1500
Yale University	New Haven, CT	1460	1600

Where should my SAT range fall and what does 25th and 75th percentile mean?

The 25th and 75th percentiles show the range in which students fall at each university. For the top universities, students should plan on falling closer toward the 75th percentile.

The 25th percentile score shows students the score that a group under 25% of total students at a college scored under.

On the contrary, the 75th percentile score shows us the score at which only 25% of students at a university scored above. The range between the 25th and 75th percentile score is called an interquartile score.

So looking at Yale, for example, 25% of students achieved an SAT score lower than 1460, and 25% of students achieved an SAT score higher than 1600 – this means that 50% of the students at Yale score between 1460 and 1600 on the SAT.

If you plan to apply to a university, it will be helpful for you if you are somewhere in the middle 50% as a starting point. This is especially true for the University of Texas, University of California, and other state-based systems that mostly take raw data and lean into testing and grades more than some smaller private schools.