H-H SAT Scores Dip From 2010

According to data released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the average SAT scores for Hatboro-Horsham High School showed a slight decline in 2011 as compared to 2010.

Of 368 students who took the college admissions exam, the average score in verbal was 512 (down from the 2010 average of 518); the average score for math was 547 (down from the 2010 average of 554); and the average score for writing was 505 (down from the 2010 average of 513). The total possible score is 2,400 for the SAT, or scores of 800 for each section.

While the across-the-board averages have dipped a bit, more Hatboro-Horsham students are taking the SAT. According to the data, 338 were tested in 2010 and in 2009 300 students took the exam. 

In 2001, 283 students took the SAT. Of those, the average math score for that year was 517 and the average verbal was 512. The writing portion was not part of the test at that point. 

Despite lower overall averages from 2010 to 2011, the Philadelphia Business Journal in its ranking of 40 southeastern Pennsylvania high schools with highest SAT scores, listed Hatboro-Horsham as No. 27.

For the first time in history, the Washington Post reports that the SAT may be seeing some real competition in the form of ACT college entrance exam as ACT has outpaced the SAT as most readily taken. However, Hatboro-Horsham students still lean more heavily toward SAT exams. According to the state's data, 51 Hatboro-Horsham High School students took an ACT exam in 2011 and 39 took it in 2010.

Hatboro-Horsham High School Principal Dennis Williams estimated that close to 90 percent of the school's juniors and seniors take the SAT as compared to the 15 to 20 percent who take the ACT.

"SATs are still the primary assessment that colleges/universities use in the admissions process," Williams said in an email. "However, ACTs have become a very nice supplemental measure because of the nature of the assessment and the diversity of subject matter involved."

Fairtest.org, an organization opposed to standardized testing, suggests that neither of the college admissions exams may be needed moving forward as more than 800 colleges and universities - including Bryn Mawr College, Franklin and Marshall College, Elizabethtown College and Gettysburg College - do not require test scores for college acceptance.