By Jacob Golomb ’16

Recent SAT reports have shown an overall decline in national and local scores.  At Sherwood, SAT composite scores have gone down by 40 points in the past three years. Sherwood’s Class of 2015 averaged a composite score of 1582, with Math scores at 537, Critical Reading at 527, and Writing at 517.

Sherwood’s decline follows a national trend. Overall scores in the United States have gone down by eight points since 2012, with a larger drop for Maryland and MCPS. As the SAT scores decline, the popularity has decreased, too. Whereas 70.7 percent of the Class of 2012 for MCPS took the SAT, 67.8 percent of the Class of 2015 took the test.

The ACT is increasingly being viewed as an attractive replacement for the ever more unpopular SAT. In contrast to the SAT’s declining scores, ACT scores have seen a slight increase in recent years, indicating that the ACT is reporting better scores than the SAT for some people. The increasing attractiveness of the ACT is probably driven by the fact that, unlike with the SAT, the ACT’s essay is optional and its multiple choice questions are more straightforward. The SAT has decided to follow the ACT’s example in hopes of remedying the decrease in its popularity. The new SAT test being launched in March 2016 will have an optional essay and no section with difficult vocab questions.