Houston Independent School District recorded lower average SAT scores for the Class of 2024 than in the previous year, according to newly released Texas Education Agency data in November.

HISD’s average composite score for the Class of 2024 ranged between 920 and 929, according to the data. The TEA data report showed the district’s average score remained below the 2024 average of 971 and the national average of 1024.

“This decline is a post-pandemic trend observed in other national assessments including the National Assessment of Educational Progress and Program for International Student Assessment,” College Board said in an online statement on Sept. 9, 2024.

In Houston area-districts, the highest average composite 2024 SAT score was 1158 in Pearland Independent School District. HISD’s highest average was a 924, ranking HISD around 29th out of all Houston districts. Cleveland Independent School District ranked the lowest, 47th, at an 822 composite score.

While the decline reflects a national trend, local educators say the impact is visible within the Houston area.

“Students have weaker critical reading skills, likely as a result of lingering education deficits from COVID-19, where schools, especially middle and elementary schools, failed to adapt effectively to student engagement and a focus on basic literacy,” Sasha Chada, Chief Executive Officer of Ivy Scholars, a local educational consultation business, said. “While there are some great free resources out there like Khan Academy, students who are struggling economically often lack access to both test prep materials and the ability to sit for the tests multiple times. This is College Board’s business model, but it leaves many students struggling.”

In March of 2024, the SAT transitioned to a fully digital format, including a shorter test, calculators allowed on both math sections, and a shorter test day, according to College Board. These changes have influenced the strategies necessary to be better prepared for the exam.

“I used to give students around two minutes for a task, and now [I] want them to finish in a minute fifteen,” Chada said. “Because shorter, more complex, [compressed [and] information-dense sections demand a better ability to manage your time down to the five second interval in the SAT; you really want to be able to control the amount of time you spend on questions.”

SAT tutor and TikTok content creator Daniel Ryave (@satpreptutor) has been teaching SAT prep for over four years, posting on various social media platforms to help students across the world who can’t afford tutoring to learn about the test with ways to “hack it” and have the same access to education as students from privileged backgrounds. He said the exam measures preparation more than intelligence.

“For students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, the SAT shows that they can hold up to academic rigor [on college applications] in ways that GPA or extracurriculars can’t really do,” Ryave said. “I think it’s a really cool test when you have access to prep, and my goal is to give as many people access as possible.”

Since the SAT has gone digital, Ryave said what’s being asked of students has “really changed.”

“[College Board] moved so far out of mental math and mental reasoning into calculator based reasoning, which is just a completely different part of the brain,” Ryave said. “If I were a student in high school right now, I would much rather take this version than the paper version. It has a lot of room for improvement.”

Ryave said the primary reason for scores going down is that it’s getting easier to go through middle and high school without having to reach functional literacy.

To prepare students for the exam, Ryave focuses on simulating real testing conditions to help manage anxiety and pacing. According to Ryave, these exercises stimulate the pressure of a real testing environment and help students get into a better headspace for the exam.

“[A] big mistake that students make in studying for the test is just not having a study plan,” Ryave said. “They think, I’ll do a practice test, and then I’ll do another practice test. That only works if you’re really reviewing your mistakes as you go, which a lot of students, frankly, don’t have the kind of mental bandwidth to know how to do.”

Junior Diego Herrejón Treviño felt “confident” he did decently on the November SAT as it was his first attempt. Although, he said he felt like he could have done better.

“The second math module absolutely sucked for me,” Herrejón Treviño said. “I had to recall eighth grade geometry, which I didn’t have a good grasp on back then, much less now.

”To study, Herrejón Treviño used practice problems on UWorld, Princeton Review, and Khan Academy and took practice tests on Bluebook.

“Focus on whatever skill you struggle with now, especially if it’s a more general concept in math or reading comprehension as it’s bound to be on the SAT,” Herrejón Treviño said. “Make sure to pace yourself especially in the second module of each section because losing track of time by sticking to one question has its disadvantages. It’s better to get through all the questions you know than to be stuck on one you can’t figure out. Then you don’t have time to answer the rest of the ones you actually know.”

Junior David Li studied without a tutor for the November SAT a month before the exam date and scored in the 99th percentile. Overall, he said he liked the test as he studied “hard” for the exam.

“I didn’t start out with a great score,” Li said. “I got a higher score eventually because of the amount of practice I did with practice tests, and I shifted to vocabulary practice because that’s what I was weaker in. I saw visible improvement. On my first paper practice test, I got 7 to 9 questions wrong, which would be the equivalent of a high 1400.”

Li used Khan Academy courses, and all seven of the available Bluebook practice tests to study for the SAT. He studied around an hour and a half each day leading up to the November exam.

“Another thing is that people place a lot of pressure on themselves when it comes to the SAT,” Li said. “The SAT doesn’t define who you are.”

While HISD reported a decline in 2024 SAT scores this year, students and tutoring organizations have outlined new measures to prepare students given recent changes to the SAT. For more updates on the SAT, visit College Board’s website.