Is a 1500 SAT a good score?

It depends entirely on where you apply. CampusPin finds 93 colleges whose published admitted-student range brackets a 1500, meaning the score sits inside their middle 50%. At 6 colleges it falls at or below the 25th percentile. "Good" is relative to a specific college's published range, not an absolute threshold.

What are my chances of getting in with a 1500 SAT?

CampusPin does not estimate admission chances and no honest tool can from a test score alone. Colleges weigh course rigor, grade trends, essays, recommendations, context, and institutional priorities alongside scores, and many are test-optional. The tiers here describe only where your score falls in each college's published percentile range.

What do reach, target, and likely mean here?

They are defined strictly from published percentiles. Likely means a 1500 is at or above the college's 75th percentile; target means it falls between the 25th and 75th; reach means it is at or below the 25th. These are the same definitions CampusPin's admission tier estimator uses.

How much do these colleges cost?

Costs are in the table: published in-state tuition and, where the college reports it, the average net price students actually paid after grants and scholarships. Net price is an average across a prior entering class and varies widely by family income, so treat it as a comparison between colleges rather than your own bill.

Admissions profile

Colleges for a 1500 SAT score

CampusPin places a 1500 against every college that publishes an admitted-student SAT range. 93colleges have a published range that brackets this score. Below they are split into target, likely, and reach by where the score falls in each college’s own percentiles.

Target — your score sits inside the published middle 50%

A 1500 falls between the 25th and 75th percentile of admitted students at these colleges, so your score is squarely in their published range. Showing the 15 largest of 93.

Target — your score sits inside the published middle 50% for a 1500 SAT, with published SAT range, acceptance rate, tuition, net price, and graduation rate.
College	SAT range	Acceptance rate	In-state tuition	Avg. net price	Graduation rate	Public/private	Location
New York University	1480–1570	9%	$62,796	$37,050	88%	Private	New York, NY
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	1270–1510	42%	$16,004	$14,355	85%	Public	Urbana, IL
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	1350–1530	16%	$17,736	$13,138	93%	Public	Ann Arbor, MI
University of Wisconsin-Madison	1360–1510	45%	$11,603	$17,354	90%	Public	Madison, WI
University of Southern California	1440–1550	10%	$72,097	$32,740	92%	Private	Los Angeles, CA
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	1330–1530	14%	$12,058	$12,116	94%	Public	Atlanta, GA
University of California, Los Angeles	1364–1587	9%	$13,225	$12,548	93%	Public	Los Angeles, CA
University of California, Berkeley	1274–1545	11%	$14,226	$13,481	93%	Public	Berkeley, CA
University of Maryland, College Park	1310–1510	44%	$10,779	$15,678	89%	Public	College Park, MD
Boston University	1400–1520	11%	$68,102	$24,402	89%	Private	Boston, MA
Columbia University in the City of New York	1490–1570	4%	$71,845	$21,590	96%	Private	New York, NY
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	1370–1530	15%	$8,994	$11,655	91%	Public	Chapel Hill, NC
Northeastern University	1460–1550	5%	$66,162	$30,915	91%	Private	Boston, MA
Harvard University	1500–1580	4%	$61,676	$19,066	98%	Private	Cambridge, MA
Cornell University	1480–1560	9%	$69,314	$28,690	95%	Private	Ithaca, NY

Likely — your score is above the published 75th percentile

At these colleges a 1500 is above the score three-quarters of admitted students came in below. Test scores are only one input, so this is not a prediction of admission. Showing the 15 largest of 1,932.

Likely — your score is above the published 75th percentile for a 1500 SAT, with published SAT range, acceptance rate, tuition, net price, and graduation rate.
College	SAT range	Acceptance rate	In-state tuition	Avg. net price	Graduation rate	Public/private	Location
Southern New Hampshire University	761–996	100%	$17,200	$36,708	43%	Private	Manchester, NH
Grand Canyon University	1058–1175	79%	$17,850	$22,472	43%	Private	Phoenix, AZ
Liberty University	1050–1250	99%	$22,465	$29,357	65%	Private	Lynchburg, VA
Arizona State University Campus Immersion	802–1066	90%	$12,223	$14,967	68%	Public	Tempe, AZ
Texas A & M University-College Station	1140–1380	57%	$13,154	$21,315	84%	Public	College Station, TX
Rutgers University-New Brunswick	1270–1480	65%	$17,929	$24,406	84%	Public	New Brunswick, NJ
University of Central Florida	1190–1350	40%	$6,368	$10,411	78%	Public	Orlando, FL
University of Washington-Seattle Campus	1023–1286	39%	$12,973	$14,091	85%	Public	Seattle, WA
Arizona State University Digital Immersion	946–1171	67%	$10,912	Not reported	Not reported	Public	Scottsdale, AZ
Ohio State University-Main Campus	1330–1480	61%	$13,244	$17,339	88%	Public	Columbus, OH
University of Florida	1300–1480	24%	$6,380	$6,541	91%	Public	Gainesville, FL
The University of Texas at Austin	1230–1490	27%	$11,688	$19,857	89%	Public	Austin, TX
Purdue University-Main Campus	1190–1460	50%	$9,992	$14,600	83%	Public	West Lafayette, IN
University of Arizona	1160–1420	86%	$13,926	$16,674	68%	Public	Tucson, AZ
Michigan State University	1150–1350	85%	$16,458	$19,680	81%	Public	East Lansing, MI

Reach — your score is below the published 25th percentile

A 1500 sits below the 25th percentile at these colleges. Students are admitted from below the 25th percentile every year — course rigor, essays, and context all matter — but the score is working against you here.

Reach — your score is below the published 25th percentile for a 1500 SAT, with published SAT range, acceptance rate, tuition, net price, and graduation rate.
College	SAT range	Acceptance rate	In-state tuition	Avg. net price	Graduation rate	Public/private	Location
Johns Hopkins University	1530–1580	6%	$65,230	$18,809	94%	Private	Baltimore, MD
University of Chicago	1510–1570	5%	$70,662	$14,860	96%	Private	Chicago, IL
Stanford University	1510–1580	4%	$65,910	$13,807	92%	Private	Stanford, CA
Duke University	1510–1570	6%	$68,758	$29,612	97%	Private	Durham, NC
Vanderbilt University	1510–1560	6%	$67,498	$15,846	94%	Private	Nashville, TN
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1510–1580	5%	$62,396	$20,111	96%	Private	Cambridge, MA

How this page was built

Every college that reports an admitted-student SAT range to federal data collections is compared against a 1500. Targetmeans the score falls inside the college’s published 25th–75th percentile range; likely means it is above the 75th percentile; reachmeans it is below the 25th. The three groups do not overlap. They follow the same approach as CampusPin’s admission tier estimator.

A tier states where a score sits in a published distribution. It is not a probability, a prediction, or a ranking of college quality. Colleges that do not publish an SAT range — including most community colleges and open-admission institutions — cannot be placed in a tier and are not listed here.

Frequently asked questions

Is a 1500 SAT a good score?: It depends entirely on where you apply. CampusPin finds 93 colleges whose published admitted-student range brackets a 1500, meaning the score sits inside their middle 50%. At 6 colleges it falls at or below the 25th percentile. "Good" is relative to a specific college's published range, not an absolute threshold.
What are my chances of getting in with a 1500 SAT?: CampusPin does not estimate admission chances and no honest tool can from a test score alone. Colleges weigh course rigor, grade trends, essays, recommendations, context, and institutional priorities alongside scores, and many are test-optional. The tiers here describe only where your score falls in each college's published percentile range.
What do reach, target, and likely mean here?: They are defined strictly from published percentiles. Likely means a 1500 is at or above the college's 75th percentile; target means it falls between the 25th and 75th; reach means it is at or below the 25th. These are the same definitions CampusPin's admission tier estimator uses.
How much do these colleges cost?: Costs are in the table: published in-state tuition and, where the college reports it, the average net price students actually paid after grants and scholarships. Net price is an average across a prior entering class and varies widely by family income, so treat it as a comparison between colleges rather than your own bill.

Other SAT scores

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Data sources & methodology

Admissions, cost, and outcome figures come from each institution's federal reporting.

Sources used across this page

Not every source informs every figure. Each data point draws on the source appropriate to it see the relevant section and the data dictionary for field-level provenance.

IPEDS / NCES College Navigator
Federal enrollment, admissions, tuition, retention, and program data. Released annually with a 1–2 year lag.
U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard
Net price by income band, post-graduation earnings, and federal aid context.
Institutional websites
Each school's official admissions, registrar, and financial-aid pages are the authoritative source for current details.

Where a value is unavailable it is shown as unavailable, never as 0, free, or a negative judgment. Always confirm final details with the institution before applying.

Methodology Data dictionary Report a correction

Suggested citation

CampusPin. Colleges for a 1500 SAT score. Retrieved from https://campuspin.com/colleges-for/1500-sat