Source: Flickr user cityyear.

As tens of thousands of student around the country receive their SAT score, one of the first questions that many of them ask seems simple: How does my score compare to the scores of other students?

Often, students wonder what other students have scored–or, what is considered an “average” SAT score.

It’s natural to want to know how your SAT score compares to those of your peers. After all, many students end up applying to competitive and selective schools, where your score may mean the difference between being accepted and being denied.

In reality, your score doesn’t matter so much in comparison to all other students, but perhaps the most relevant question to ask is how does it stack up against other students who are admitted to the colleges which you’re planning to apply?

Colleges and universities around the country do publish this kind of information. Generally, the report the 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores of all students that are admitted in a given year. So, while these aren’t “minimum” SAT score requirements (very few colleges have published minimums), they do give you an idea of what the admissions officers may be expecting for an SAT score of a prospective student. This can help you see what your odds of being accepted might look like.

Secondly, each year, College Board also publishes a distribution of the SAT scores from all students. So, in a broader sense, students can at least get a general idea of how their score compares to all other students who took the test.

1. Median SAT Scores – National “Average” SAT Scores

College Board publishes a break down of all students’ scores on the SAT each year.

Rather than publishing an “average” SAT score specifically, they publish a chart that shows the percentile rankings of each different score ranges. What this means is that a student can find their SAT score on the chart and it will tell them both what percentage of students they scored higher than (their percentile ranking) as well as an approximation of what percentage of all students scored within their range (by subtracting the percentiles).

SAT distribution for 2014:

As an example, in this case you can see that composite scores of 1450-1500 have a percentile ranking of 46-52, which means that if you scored within this range, you scored higher than approximately 46-52 percent of all students.

Because the 50th percentile also falls into this range, you know that the median SAT score is also near the center of this range–approximately a 1480, in this case.

2. “Average” ACT Scores at Each College

What may be more relevant to you as a student is not how you compare to all students, but how you compare to students at a particular college.

“Is my SAT score good enough to get into UCLA?” you might be asking yourself.

If you want to get an idea for how your score compares–and an idea of what your admissions chances might be–then you can look at the distribution of SAT scores within a single college.

On College Raptor, we publish the 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores for all colleges that report it. So, in just a few minutes, you can see how your score stacks up. Keep in mind that, again, these are not truly “average” SAT scores. Instead, they show you how about half of admitted students scored. Based on this data, you can see that 50% of all students score somewhere within this range. But, it’s not a rigid guideline. Half of students score outside of this range–about 25% higher and 25% lower.

Here are some examples:

University of California Los Angeles average SAT scores

(via College Raptor)

Rice University average ACT scores

(via College Raptor)

Roanoke College average SAT scores

(via College Raptor)