NC State SAT Scores: 2026 Admissions Profile & Range Guide

NC State's SAT range isn't a cutoff. It's a portrait of last year's class, and knowing the difference changes how you build your list.

The common assumption is that if your score falls within the middle 50%, you're a target school applicant, and if it falls below, you shouldn't bother — that the range itself is the bar. NC State's published SAT range stops a lot of students cold. A student with a 4.2 weighted GPA stares at "1270–1440" and wonders whether to bother.

That hesitation is understandable, but it's built on a misread of what that number actually measures. The middle 50% range is a description of last year's enrolled class, not a gate you either pass or fail. Understanding that distinction is what separates students who build smart, balanced lists from students who either over-commit to one school or walk away from a real option.

See our AI college counselor for how this works in practice.

North Carolina State University's middle 50% SAT range for the 2026 admissions cycle is 1270 to 1440, drawn from the institution's Common Data Set. That range captures the 25th through 75th percentile of enrolled students. By definition, 25% of the class scored below 1270 and 25% scored above 1440. The range tells you where the bulk of the class landed; it does not tell you where the cutoff sits. The average SAT composite for NC State's admitted students sits near 1360 to 1380. That midpoint means roughly half the enrolled class scored below it.

A student at 1330 is not an outlier; they are in the lower half of a real, enrolled cohort. The average is a center of gravity, not a floor. A score below 1270 puts you outside the middle 50%, but outside is not the same as excluded. Admissions offices weigh GPA, course rigor, intended major, essays, and other factors alongside test scores.

The middle 50% range is a description of last year's enrolled class, not a gate you either pass or fail.

1270–1440 NC State's middle 50% SAT range

Key takeaways

• NC State's middle 50% SAT range (1270–1440) is a population snapshot, not a cutoff: a 1310 with a strong GPA is not automatically out, and a 1440 targeting Computer Science is not automatically in.
• NC State is test-required for 2025–26; students who assumed it went test-optional after the pandemic are working from the wrong policy and may have planned their testing calendar around a rule that does not exist.
• Program-level SAT expectations for Engineering and Computer Science run materially higher than the university-wide composite range; the gap between eligible and competitive is wide enough to change your strategy.
• NC State officially superscores the SAT, pulling your highest section scores across all test dates, which means a single bad test day does not define your submission.
• Where NC State belongs on your list — reach, target, or safety — depends on how your full profile compares to the enrolled class, not whether you clear a minimum threshold.
• A balanced list built around your actual odds at each school is what produces an enrollment you want, not a single-school bet on NC State. Kollegio.ai's College Finder generates an AI-recommended college list tailored to your profile and shows exactly why each school made the cut, so you can see where NC State fits and what surrounds it.

NC State's Current SAT/ACT Testing Policy for 2025–26 — Test-Required, With Exceptions

Plenty of students searching "NC State test-optional 2025" walk away with the wrong answer. The confusion is understandable: dozens of well-known universities extended or made permanent their test-optional policies after the pandemic, and it is easy to assume NC State followed the same path. It did not. One of the most common planning mistakes families make is building a college list around a policy assumption that turns out to be wrong, and NC State is exactly the kind of school where that assumption costs real time and real opportunity.

NC State Is Test-Required for 2025–26, Not Test-Optional, Despite the National Trend

NC State is test-required for first-year applicants in the 2025–26 cycle. According to NC State's Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the vast majority of first-year applicants must submit SAT or ACT scores as part of a complete application. This is not a gray area or a temporary holdover.

The policy is clearly stated on the admissions site and applies to the current cycle. This is precisely the kind of detail that trips up families who are trying to build a balanced, realistic college list without professional guidance. When a student's academic profile looks like a fit for NC State on paper, but their application plan was built on a test-optional assumption, the mismatch doesn't surface until it's too late to fix.

Kollegio's College Finder captures testing status as part of the student profile from the very start of the onboarding process, before recommendations are generated, so a school like NC State only appears on a list when a student is actually positioned to apply.

Exactly Who Must Submit Scores, and the Narrow Exception

A narrow group of applicants — those with a weighted GPA between 2.5 and 2.8 — falls outside the standard requirement. For that group, the policy does not grant a test-optional waiver. Instead, it triggers a mandatory minimum threshold.

Applicants with a weighted GPA between 2.5 and 2.8 must meet a minimum SAT score of 930 to be considered for admission. A student with a weighted GPA in that range who assumed they could apply without scores is not getting a pass.

They are facing a floor, not a door left open. That distinction matters enormously for application planning. Families we work with consistently underestimate how granular these thresholds are, and how differently each school applies them.

Kollegio's Plan Applications feature maps these exact policy details to a student's actual GPA and test scores, flagging schools where a student clears the threshold comfortably, schools where they sit near a floor, and schools where the numbers simply don't align, so the list reflects reality before any applications are submitted.

What "Test-Required" Means for How You Read the Data

930 Minimum SAT score for low-GPA applicants

Because NC State is test-required, its published middle 50% SAT range reflects the full admitted class, not a self-selected group of high scorers who chose to submit. That makes the range a more reliable competitive benchmark than ranges published by test-optional peers, where only confident submitters inflate the reported numbers. NC State's application review process makes clear that test scores are evaluated alongside GPA and other academic factors, not as an afterthought.

Understanding what that range actually means for a specific student, whether their score is competitive, borderline, or a genuine strength, is a different skill than simply finding the number. That is where building a balanced, realistic college list around a student's academic profile, interests, and family financial situation becomes more than a spreadsheet exercise. Kollegio's AI College Recommender and Scholarship Finder work together with the student profile to surface schools where a student's full picture — scores, GPA, activities, and financial need — positions them well, rather than schools where one strong data point masks a meaningful gap elsewhere.

If you already have scores, the NC State test-optional policy question is settled: submit them. For applicants in the lower GPA range, the 930 SAT floor is not a suggestion; it is the admission threshold, and your list needs to be built with that constraint acknowledged from the start.

NC State Average SAT Score Breakdown — Section Scores, GPA Context, and Admissions Difficulty

The composite SAT score published on NC State's admissions page is a starting point, not a verdict. Students who read it most accurately are the ones who break it apart by section, then pair it with GPA data from the actual incoming class rather than treating a single number as a pass/fail gate. That composite range is not merely imprecise; it can be actively directionally wrong: a 1300 sitting inside NC State's published range can represent two completely different competitive positions depending on section composition and target program, meaning the single number misleads rather than informs for students whose intended major draws from a skewed section-score distribution.

• The question students actually need answered is which specific weakness a headline number is hiding. It surfaces most urgently around GPA, where a single D or C in a non-major course can make an otherwise strong record feel fragile.
• The same logic applies to SAT sections.
• A low Math sub-score buried inside an acceptable composite creates exactly the same hidden vulnerability, and it only becomes visible when you disaggregate the data.

That is the kind of nuanced, section-level reading that navigating a complex college admissions process actually requires.

NC State's Middle 50% SAT by Section — Math vs. Reading and Writing Aren't the Same TargetAccording to NC State's Fall 2025 Common Data Set, the Math section middle 50% runs from 640 to 740, while the Reading and Writing section runs from 630 to 700. That 40-point spread between the Math ceiling and the R&W ceiling matters. A student who scores 740 Math and 630 R&W lands at a 1370 composite, but their Math section sits at the 75th percentile while their R&W sits at the 25th. The composite hides that story entirely.

What the 1360 Midpoint Actually Means — Half the Admitted Class Scored Below It

The middle 50% composite range of roughly 1270 to 1440 places the midpoint at approximately 1360. That means half of every admitted class scored below 1360. Scoring a 1300 does not place you outside NC State's admitted pool; it places you in the lower quartile of it.

That is a different and more useful piece of information, and it only becomes actionable when you read it alongside GPA. For a Liberal Arts applicant, a 1300 may be solidly mid-range, but for an Engineering applicant whose 1300 includes a sub-640 Math score, it likely places them below the 25th percentile of their actual peer pool, a position the university-wide range never signals. This is precisely where students we work with at Kollegio run into difficulty: they see a composite that clears the published threshold and assume they are on safe footing, without realizing that the program they are applying to draws from a distribution the university-wide number does not represent.

Building a complete student profile — test scores mapped against section benchmarks, GPA contextualized by course rigor, and intended major flagged — is the only way to surface that mismatch before it becomes a rejection. Kollegio's onboarding profile is designed to capture exactly these details at the very start of the process, before college recommendations are generated, so the list you build reflects your actual competitive position rather than a composite illusion.

GPA Ranges for the Fall 2025 Incoming Class, Weighted 4.2 to 4.5, Unweighted 3.8 to 4.0NC State's Fall 2025 incoming class carried a weighted GPA middle 50% of 4.2 to 4.5 and an unweighted range of 3.8 to 4.0. NC State's holistic review weighs academic rigor alongside these GPA figures, which is why a single anomalous grade, a D in a non-major elective, for instance, does not automatically read as disqualifying, but does need to be understood in context. The anxiety that one low grade poisons an otherwise strong record is real and understandable; the accurate answer is that context and course pattern matter, and that the GPA benchmark above is the range to orient against, not a single course outcome. Kollegio's College Finder and AI College Recommender factor in the full profile, including GPA context, so that the schools surfaced as matches are calibrated to where you actually stand in a real admitted class, not against an idealized average.Quick-Reference — How to Read Your SAT Score Against NC State's Data

Your Composite	Position in NC State's Middle 50%	Rough Self-Classification
1440+	Above 75th percentile (university-wide)	Strong target / possible reach for ultra-selective programs
1360–1439	Upper half of middle 50%	Match (adjust down for Engineering, see §3)
1270–1359	Lower half of middle 50%	Match-to-reach depending on GPA and major
Below 1270	Below 25th percentile	Reach; weigh GPA and course rigor heavily
Below 930 (with GPA 2.5–2.8)	Hard minimum threshold applies	Review GPA policy in §1 before applying

Note: Engineering applicants should run this check against the 720–760 Math benchmark in the Engineering section below, not the composite alone.

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SAT Scores for NC State Engineering and Competitive Programs — The Higher-End Reality

A student targeting NC State's Computer Science or Mechanical Engineering program who sees the university-wide SAT range and thinks "I'm in the middle, I'm fine" is working with the wrong map. The program-level reality is sharper, and the gap between "eligible" and "competitive" is wide enough to matter. Even students with genuinely strong scores — a 1510, for instance — routinely feel uncertain about their competitiveness at selective public engineering programs.

That anxiety isn't irrational. It reflects a real disconnect between university-wide published ranges and the tighter sub-band that quantitative colleges actually draw from. Students who come from rigorous high schools, where a 1430 is the average in the room, often feel doubly disadvantaged when peers from less competitive schools apply test-optional with scores as low as 1000 and still land in the same applicant pool.

Building a balanced, realistic college list that matches a student's academic profile, not just their raw score, is exactly where that uncertainty needs to be resolved before applications go out.

Engineering Admits Cluster at the Top Quartile, Not the University Midpoint

Competitive applicants to NC State's College of Engineering score at the higher end of the university-wide range. While NC State's overall middle 50% sits roughly between 1270 and 1440, Engineering admits cluster toward the upper portion of that band. A composite around 1380 to 1440 is a more realistic self-assessment benchmark for this college than the aggregate midpoint, which blends in programs with lower quantitative demands.

Why SAT Math (720 to 760+) Outweighs the Composite for Engineering Applicants

NC State's university-wide SAT Math average is 680, with a 75th percentile of 740. For Engineering applicants, that 740 ceiling is closer to a floor. A 720 to 760 Math score signals genuine quantitative readiness; a composite built on a strong Reading and Writing section with a weaker Math split reads very differently to a program reviewer evaluating future engineers.

The section score, not the composite, is the more meaningful signal here. This is precisely the kind of sub-score nuance that gets lost when families rely on headline ranges alone. Kollegio's onboarding profile captures a student's full academic picture — section scores, course rigor, and target programs — so that when the College Finder and AI College Recommender generate recommendations, they reflect program-level reality rather than blended university-wide averages.

A student whose 1400 composite masks a 660 Math will see NC State Engineering flagged as a reach, not smoothed into a match.

If Engineering Is Your Target, Plan Around 1380–1440, Not the Middle 50%

A 1350 composite can feel safely inside NC State's published range. In practice, if that score reflects a 670 Math, the student may be below the effective floor for Engineering even while sitting inside the university-wide band. The aggregate range smooths over the tighter sub-band that quantitative programs actually draw from; conflating the two leads students to misclassify NC State as a match when it functions as a reach for their specific target college.

This misclassification problem is compounded by the test-optional environment: when some admits arrive without scores, the published ranges become even harder to interpret accurately. A student's PrepScholar profile data for NC State is a useful starting anchor, but it has to be read against program context, not university-wide aggregates. The honest planning benchmark, built around a student's actual section scores, the programs they're targeting, and a college list calibrated to their full profile, is what Kollegio is designed to surface at the very start of the onboarding process, before recommendations are generated.

Getting that map right early is what separates students who apply strategically from those who discover the gap too late to act on it.

Does NC State Superscore the SAT — and How Should You Submit Your Scores?

NC State Superscores the SAT: Yes, Officially

Applicants routinely ask how competitive a superscored SAT — a 1400, say — really is for state engineering programs; there is genuine confusion about how schools like NC State weigh superscores against single-sitting scores.

NC State officially superscores the SAT, pulling your highest Math and highest Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores from every test date you submit, then combining them into a single composite. This is confirmed policy on NC State's admissions page. A weak Saturday in October does not erase a strong Math section from March.

Each sitting adds to your best possible composite rather than replacing it. The detail most students miss: the published middle 50% range (640–740 Math, 630–700 EBRW) is itself built from superscored composites. You are not racing toward a bar set by single-sitting scores.

That reframes the entire retake question. One of the most persistent worries we hear from students is whether to submit a superscore or a single-sitting composite, fearing one option will look worse to admissions committees. The answer, at NC State, is unambiguous: the admissions office evaluates the superscore, not the composite from any individual sitting.

There is no penalty for having several test dates on record. A related fear surfaces specifically around competitive programs: students wonder whether a superscored 1400 carries the same weight as a 1400 earned in a single sitting for state engineering programs. Across the market, a superscore is the score; there is no secondary single-sitting preference built into the review process.

The Retake Math in Practice

Here is a concrete example drawn directly from NC State's own admissions guidance. A student scores 680 Math and 650 EBRW in the fall, then 660 Math and 690 EBRW in the spring. Neither sitting alone clears 1370.

Combined, the superscore is 1370 (680 + 690), landing squarely in NC State's middle 50%. Two imperfect sittings built one competitive composite. College Board data shows students who retake the SAT gain an average of roughly 20–40 points on their composite.

When superscoring is in play, even a targeted 30-point improvement on a single section can shift your composite meaningfully. The strategic move is identifying which section has the most room to grow and focusing prep there. This is exactly where building a balanced, realistic college list, one that accounts for a student's current academic profile and where scores are trending, matters as much as the score work itself.

Kollegio's onboarding profile and AI College Recommender capture your child's academic standing, interests, and your family's financial situation together, so the list evolves as scores improve across retakes rather than being locked to a single snapshot.

Self-Reporting vs. Official Scores — What to Submit

A question that creates real anxiety for applicants: when you self-report, do you need to list the full composite from every sitting alongside your highest individual section scores? What most applicants find when they work through this is that they are encouraged to self-report SAT scores directly on the application. Official scores sent through College Board are required only at enrollment, not during the admissions review itself.

You report your scores; NC State constructs the superscore from what you provide. For families navigating this alongside financial aid planning and program fit, Kollegio's Scholarship Finder and financial aid tools layer directly onto the same student profile, so the college list your child is building toward is grounded in both academic competitiveness and what your family can realistically afford. Getting the application step right on scores is one piece; making sure NC State belongs on the list in the first place is the other.

NC State Reach, Match, and Safety Schools — Using Your SAT Score to Build a List That Actually Protects You

A balanced college list does more than scatter a few names across selectivity tiers; it creates a genuine safety net by matching your actual admissions odds at each school to the role that school plays in your plans. NC State belongs somewhere on that list, but where it belongs depends on how your score compares to the middle 50 percent range of enrolled students, not just whether you clear a minimum threshold. Most students underestimate how much that placement matters: a school that looks like a match on paper can function as a reach if your score falls in the lower quarter of admitted applicants.

The common assumption among high school students applying to college is: "If my score is in the middle 50%, I'm a target school applicant; if it's below, I shouldn't bother, the range is the bar." Here is a hard truth most students skip past once they move beyond that assumption: NC State's acceptance rate sits at approximately 39%. That means more than 6 in 10 applicants do not get in, regardless of where their SAT score lands inside the published range.

Treating the score range as a simple pass/fail check ignores that reality entirely. One of the most persistent dangers we see students face is building a college list around SAT scores alone and being blindsided when a school they assumed was a comfortable match still defers or rejects them. A score sitting inside the published range does not guarantee admission; it only tells you where you stand relative to enrolled students on one dimension.

NC State evaluates applicants holistically, which means course rigor, GPA trend, activities, and essays all enter the equation. Students with inflated GPAs from lighter course loads may look strong on paper but find themselves poorly positioned once admissions readers dig into transcript context. A score-only list cannot capture that difference.

1. Kollegio.ai — Best for Building a Balanced NC State Reach/Match/Safety List with AI Precision

Kollegio.ai uses AI to analyze your SAT score against NC State's admitted student profile and instantly generates a personalized reach, match, and safety school list, no $10,000 counselor required. It consolidates college research, essay feedback, and school matching into one free platform. The tradeoff: it's a newer platform, so students who prefer decades-old brand recognition may need time to trust AI-driven guidance.

2. PrepScholar — Best for Benchmarking Your SAT Score Against NC State's Exact Admissions Data

PrepScholar surfaces NC State's middle 50% SAT range alongside percentile context that helps you place your score precisely. Its strength is translating those thresholds into plain language so students understand they are in match territory, not safe territory. That distinction matters because families are often caught off guard when a school they assumed was a safety, based on an SAT score above the enrolled median, still defers or rejects their child. The score range is a starting point, not a verdict.

3. CollegeVine — Best for Understanding the Reach/Match/Safety Framework Before Applying to NC State

CollegeVine explains the reach/match/safety framework in accessible terms and gives students a structured way to think about list balance before they start filling out applications. Its chancing tool factors in GPA alongside SAT score, which matters because NC State evaluates applicants holistically. The same SAT score with a 4.4 weighted GPA reads very differently from the same score with a 3.6.

4. NC State Admissions Fast Facts — Best for Getting Official SAT Benchmarks Straight from the Source

The NC State Admissions Fast Facts page is the authoritative source for the numbers that matter: the middle 50% SAT range, acceptance rate, and enrolled class profile. No third-party interpretation required. Students building a list should start here to anchor their self-assessment, then use that baseline to evaluate peer schools above and below NC State's selectivity tier. The middle 50% SAT range — 1270 to 1440 — gives you two hard benchmarks: a 1270 places you at the 25th percentile of enrolled students, and a 1440 places you at the 75th. Knowing exactly where you sit within that band, not just whether you clear the floor, is what separates a thoughtful list from a wishful one.

5. College Confidential — Best for Real Student Chance-Me Discussions Around NC State SAT Scores

College Confidential threads surface something data tables cannot: how residency status shifts the math. In-state applicants to NC State face meaningfully different odds than out-of-state applicants, and that difference determines how NC State should be categorized on any given student's list. Residency is one of several variables, alongside course rigor, GPA, and financial profile, that a score-range lookup cannot resolve on its own. Building a list that accounts for all of them together, from the start, is the work that keeps "balanced" from becoming a label applied after the fact.

6. Appily — Best for Adding a Financial Safety Check When Finalizing Your NC State-Anchored College List

Appily layers net price and financial aid data on top of the traditional reach/match/safety framework, helping students ensure their safety schools are genuinely affordable, not just academically accessible. For NC State applicants building a list, this financial lens prevents the common mistake of choosing a safety school that costs more than the reach. The tradeoff: Appily's college database is broad but less granular on NC-specific school comparisons than dedicated regional tools.

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Find Out Exactly Where NC State Fits on Your List — Without Paying a College Counselor

NC State's published SAT range tells you what the enrolled class looked like in aggregate, but it says nothing about how your score competes within your intended major, how residency shifts the bar, or whether your list is built to actually protect you if a 39% acceptance rate school says no. Those are the variables that determine whether a score is a green light, a warning sign, or somewhere in between. Kollegio works through exactly that kind of personalized read, and this section explains the framework behind it.

Why Your SAT Score Is a Starting Point, Not a Verdict

NC State's Common Data Set was designed for cross-institutional research, not student advising. It reports population-level outcomes: who enrolled, what their scores looked like in aggregate. A student applying to Computer Science faces a materially different competitive bar than the university-wide middle 50% implies, yet the published range treats both applicants identically. Using it to make a personal admissions decision is like using a city's average commute time to predict your specific drive. The number is real; the application is wrong.

The Variables a Score Lookup Cannot Account For

Major, GPA, and list balance all shape how a score actually competes. Residency adds another layer: NC State's Common Data Set shows admitted in-state and out-of-state students carry different score profiles, meaning the same composite earns different competitive standing depending on where you live. GPA complexity runs deeper still for transfer applicants, who often carry real anxiety about how a single outlier grade — a D in a non-major elective, for instance — could color an otherwise strong transcript.

That tension is understandable, because NC State's Common Data Set reports aggregate outcomes and says nothing about how individual grade anomalies are weighed against overall GPA trends. From our market understanding, a meaningful share of applicants target only one or two schools, which is the list-building risk that leaves students exposed when a single 39% acceptance rate school does not work out.

Reach, Match, Safety — How NC State Gets Slotted Differently for Different Students

The hidden cost of simply checking the range is false confidence or false disqualification, with no safety net either way. Kollegio AI's personalized college recommendations are generated after a student completes a detailed onboarding profile at the very start of the process, before any recommendations are produced, so that major, GPA, residency status, and the full shape of an academic record all inform the output, not just a raw SAT score checked against a population-level band from the Common Data Set. The College Finder and AI College Recommender then slot NC State accurately into a reach, match, or safety designation specific to that student's profile, and the Scholarship Finder surfaces personalized financial aid options alongside those placements so list-building and affordability planning happen together, not in separate silos.

Kollegio AI is built for high school students working through undergraduate admissions on their own. If you are applying to graduate, law, medical, or MBA programs, or if you are already working closely with a private counselor, this tool is not designed for your situation.

Next steps

If your SAT score has been functioning as a pass/fail verdict on NC State rather than a placement tool, the path forward starts with reading the range as a distribution, not a cutoff.

NC State's superscoring policy means the published middle 50% range is built from best-section composites across multiple sittings, not single-date results, which makes any one test date an incremental data point rather than a final answer. At the same time, the university-wide composite range actively misleads students whose intended major draws from a tighter sub-band: a 1300 composite that includes a sub-640 Math score likely places an Engineering applicant below the effective floor of their actual peer pool, even while sitting inside the aggregate range. Together, those two facts point toward the same next step: mapping your section scores and target program against the right benchmark, then building a list that reflects where NC State actually slots for your specific profile.

For a deeper look at how section scores shift competitive positioning by program, the NC State Engineering breakdown earlier in this post is worth revisiting before finalizing any list. If you want to go further and run your full profile, including GPA, major, residency, and test scores, against enrolled-class data rather than population-level averages, see the AI college counselor for guidance built around individual advising rather than aggregate research tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are NC State's 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores?

NC State's middle 50% SAT composite range is 1270 to 1440, meaning 25% of enrolled students scored below 1270 and 25% scored above 1440. By section, the Math middle 50% runs from 640 to 740 and the Reading and Writing middle 50% runs from 630 to 700.

Does NC State look at SAT Math and Reading scores separately, or just the composite?

For most applicants the composite is the headline number, but section scores matter significantly for program fit. Engineering applicants in particular should focus on their Math sub-score: a 720 to 760+ Math signals quantitative readiness, and a composite built on a strong Reading and Writing score with a weak Math score reads very differently to an Engineering program reviewer than the composite alone suggests.

Is NC State test-optional, or do I have to submit SAT scores?

NC State is test-required for first-year applicants in the 2025–26 cycle; it did not follow the national trend toward test-optional policies. The only exception applies to applicants with a weighted GPA between 2.5 and 2.8, who face a mandatory minimum SAT threshold of 930 rather than a test-optional waiver.

My SAT is below 1270, is it even worth applying to NC State?

Scoring below the 25th percentile (1270) means you're outside the middle 50%, but that is not the same as being excluded. Admissions weighs GPA, course rigor, intended major, essays, and other factors alongside test scores: a 1250 SAT paired with a 4.4 weighted GPA in a competitive course load is a meaningfully different application than a 1250 with a 3.6.

What SAT score should I realistically aim for if I'm targeting NC State Engineering?

A composite around 1380 to 1440 is a more realistic self-assessment benchmark for Engineering applicants than the university-wide midpoint of roughly 1360, because Engineering admits cluster toward the upper portion of the overall range. More importantly, a Math sub-score of 720 to 760 or higher matters more than the composite for Engineering, since the university-wide 75th percentile Math score of 740 functions closer to a floor for that college.