By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – Shrewsbury High School Principal Todd Bazydlo and Nga Huynh, director of school counseling presented good news to the School Committee at their Dec. 6 meeting. The Class of 2017’s SAT scores continue to outpace state and national averages. Based on a 1600 scale, Shrewsbury’s SAT scores remain well above the state and national averages of 1103 and 1070, respectively.
This is the first class to be assessed with the re-tooled exam. The score is based on two sections: Evidence Based Reading & Writing and Math with a score range from 200-800. It’s important to note that scores are not directly comparable to the old SAT.
The average Evidenced Based Reading and Writing score is 588 while the Math score is 608. When broken down by gender, the scores are equal for male and female in reading and writing at 588 and for math the scores are 593 for females and 624 for males. Ninety-one percent of the class of 2017 took the SATs which is down slightly from previous years.
Regarding the ACT exam, Massachusetts has one of the lowest participation rates in the country. Of the 398 students in the Class of 2017, 131 students took the ACT. This is a decrease of 7 percent compared to last year. Of those who did, the average for the Shrewsbury’s Class of 2017 is 26.0 (based on a scale of 1 – 36). This score is equivalent to about 1260 on the SATs.
“More and more [colleges and universities] continue to be score optional which means that students choose not to send their scores with their [college] application,” shared Huynh.
For college admissions, the SAT and ACT scores are still the norm and a handful of highly selective or specialized schools will require a supplemental subject test, roughly 45 to 50 colleges and universities.
Advanced Placement (AP) exams increased by 122 exams to a total of 668 exams. The number of students taking AP exams increased by 68 students. The number of seniors that took AP exams was 212 and the number of juniors was 130. Fifty-three percent of the students in the Class of 2017 took at least one AP exam while 39 percent of Shrewsbury students took three or more exams. All scores were above the state and national averages.
“When you are looking at the academic health of the school these are things you want to look at…This community can feel very confident that the results that are being produced relative to all these various high school tests indicate that we have a very healthy academic program at Shrewsbury High School,” remarked Dr. Joseph Sawyer, School Superintendent.