What counts as a good SAT score?
The honest answer is that it depends on where your child is applying. There are still a few reliable ways to judge a number, though.
Parents want a single threshold, and the test doesn't give one. A 1300 can be excellent for one student's list of colleges and short for another's. What makes a score "good" is whether it helps at the specific schools your child actually cares about. Here's how to judge that without guessing.
Percentiles tell you where a score sits
Every score comes with a percentile, which is the share of test-takers who scored at or below it. A 1200 sits around the 75th percentile nationally, so roughly three-quarters of students scored lower. That's a fair reference for "how does this compare to everyone else." On its own, though, it doesn't tell you whether the score is good enough for the schools on your list.
The number that actually matters: each school's middle 50%
Every college publishes the middle-50% SAT range of its admitted students, meaning the scores between the 25th and 75th percentile of who got in. This is the number to use. If a school's admitted range is 1350 to 1520 and your child is at 1300, they're below the middle but not out of the running. At 1450, they're comfortably inside it. Look up that range for each school on the list and you get a real answer, school by school, instead of a national average that fits nobody in particular.
"Good" shifts with where the student is
A strong score for a sophomore testing early is different from a strong score for a senior with a year of prep behind them. Judge a number against where a student is in the process, not only against the whole population. A 1150 in tenth grade with plenty of room to grow is a very different situation from a 1150 in the fall of senior year with applications due.
What a good score is not
A good score clears a bar. It very rarely wins an admission on its own, because grades, coursework, and the rest of the application still carry real weight. The useful way to think about the SAT is as one gate among several: worth clearing for the schools where it helps, and not worth chasing to a perfect number for its own sake.
The one figure to write down for each college on the list: its middle-50% SAT range. A good score is one that lands your child inside it.
So skip the abstract version of the question. The one worth answering is narrower: what score puts my child in range at the schools they actually want? That you can look up in an afternoon, and then you have a real target to aim at instead of a rumor.