Women Narrow the Gender Gap in Scores on the SAT College Entrance Examination

The College Board has released its annual report on the scores of graduating high school seniors in the Class of 2020 on the SAT college entrance examination. Women made up 52 percent of the 2,198,460 test takers in the high school graduating Class of 2020.

Four years ago, The College Board “redesigned” the SAT and therefore it claims that current scores cannot be compared to those from the past. Scores on the redesigned test are significantly higher than those from previous years.

Each of the two subsections of the SAT is scored on a scale of 200 to 800 points. This year women had a mean score of 532 on the reading test. This was nine points higher than the mean score for men. A year ago, the gender gap in favor of women was five points. On the mathematics section, men scored an average of 531. This was 15 points higher than the mean score for women. A year ago the gap in favor of men was 18 points. Thus, on the combined test, men had a mean score of 1055 and women had a mean score of 1048. A year ago the overall gender gap in favor of men was 13 points. This year it was seven.

The results showed that 47 percent of men and 43 percent of women met the college and career readiness benchmark for both reading and mathematics. More than 30 percent of men and women test takers did not make the readiness benchmark in either reading or mathematics.