THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996               TAG: 9608230063
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF REPORT 
                                            LENGTH:   41 lines

IN VIRGINIA, HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS' SCORES WENT UP 5 POINTS.

Virginia's crop of graduating high school seniors this year improved its performance on the SAT by 5 points overall, the third consecutive year that scores on the college-entrance exam have risen in the state.

Nearly 44,000 students, or 68 percent of the senior class of 1996, including those attending public and private schools, took the exam.

The class had a combined average score of 1003 - 507 on the verbal and 496 on the math. That's an improvement of 3 points on the verbal and 2 points on the math over the previous year.

Virginia students outpaced the national average verbal score by 2 points, but lagged 12 points behind the national math average.

While the trend of the mid-1990s in Virginia has been toward rising SAT scores, students this year did not do as well as their counterparts of nearly 10 years ago. In 1987, Virginia seniors scored 511 on the verbal portion and 499 on the math, a combined 1010.

Reflecting national trends, boys in Virginia outscored girls, and white students had better scores than African-American students.

The biggest gap between boys and girls was in math - boys had an average score of 513, compared with 482 for girls. Boys had a 2-point edge verbally - 508 to 506.

White students had a combined average score of 1041: 527 on the verbal and 514 on the math. Blacks scored a combined 847: 434 on the verbal and 413 on the math.

Students attending religiously affiliated and private schools outperformed public school children by significant margins. The average combined score in religious schools was 1042, while the combined score in private schools was 1104, more than 100 points above the public schools' average of 1000 points.

The top three college choices for SAT-takers were the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech University and James Madison University. Old Dominion University ranked fourth, while Hampton University ranked 12th and Norfolk State was 15th.

KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZING TESTING SAT STATISTICS

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