NJ SAT Scores 2021: See How Lakewood Students Fared

LAKEWOOD, NJ — Amid questions of learning loss in the Garden State during COVID-19 and canceled state assessments, the Murphy administration released its annual School Performance Reports for the 2020-21 school year.

Although benchmark performance tests have been put on hold during the 2020 and 2021 school years, other barometers of student learning were revealed in the report, including student graduation rate and SAT scores.

In 2020-21, the statewide graduation rate decreased slightly to 90.6 percent (compared to 2019-20's 91 percent), although New Jersey still ranks highly compared to the national average of roughly 88 percent. Homeless students graduated at a rate of 72.9 percent, while only about half of high school seniors who were in foster care graduated in 2020-21.

For the Lakewood Public Schools, the graduation rate was 83.2 percent in 2021 for students graduating in four years, and 85.1 percent graduated in five years, according to the district's performance report.

Fewer high school students in the Garden State took the college preparatory ACT and SAT tests than in previous years — 45.5 percent of New Jersey seniors took the SAT, and 8.8 percent took the ACT, according to the report — with experts noting that the drop could stem from many colleges eliminating the test score requirement in college applications. Here's a current list of colleges and universities not requiring SAT scores from applicants.

But the SAT tests as we know them may be a thing of the past, according to a report from NBC News stating that the SAT will be administered entirely online as a shorter, more comprehensive test beginning in 2023.

During the 2020-21 school year, the average math score for the SAT in New Jersey was 560; the average reading/writing score was 557, with an average combined score of roughly 1,110 (up from an average 1,072 the year before). A perfect score on the test would be a combined 1600, or 800 in each section. The college readiness benchmarks are 480 for reading, and 530 for math, according to the report.

In the Lakewood Public Schools, 41.6 percent of the students who were seniors in 2020-21 took the SAT tests. They had a combined score average of 884, according to the state Education Department report, with a 445 on reading and 439 on the math portion.

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