Huge Gender Differences Persist on SAT Math Test

Math SAT Percentile Ranks: Males and Females, 2011

Score	Percentile	Males	Females	M-F Ratio
800	99	9,120	4,683	1.95
790	99	771	479	1.61
780	99	3,114	1,472	2.12
770	98	6,824	4,063	1.68
760	98	5,648	3,263	1.73
750	97	4,576	2,440	1.88
740	96	7,011	4,714	1.49
730	96	5,171	3,237	1.60
720	95	6,134	4,034	1.52
710	94	10,037	6,833	1.47
700	93	10,809	7,460	1.45
690	92	12,528	8,723	1.44
680	90	13,886	10,067	1.38
670	89	14,657	10,620	1.38
660	87	14,554	11,470	1.27
650	86	15,031	11,960	1.26
640	84	16,878	13,805	1.22
630	82	16,396	14,033	1.17
620	80	17,223	14,728	1.17
610	77	27,251	24,857	1.10
600	75	18,342	17,028	1.08
590	73	17,591	17,172	1.02
580	70	21,622	21,038	1.03

The College Board recently released detailed data on percentile ranks by gender for the 2011 SAT tests, and data for the 2011 SAT math test are presented in the table and chart above.                       

1. For all math SAT scores of 580 and above (70th percentile), male students outnumbered female students (see table above).

2. As the scores increased by 10-point intervals from 580 to 800, the male-female ratio increased in almost all cases, reaching a peak of 2.12-t0-1 for scores of 780.  For perfect scores of 800, the male-female ratio was 1.95-t0-1. 

3. More women (873,896) than men (768,554) took the SAT test in 2010, and to adjust for those differences in sample sizes, we can calculate that 1.19% of males had perfect 800 scores compared to 0.54% of females, for an adjusted male-female ratio of 2.21-to-1 (vs. the 1.95 unadjusted ratio).

4. For top math scores between 750 and 800, there were 183.25 males earning those high test scores for every 100 females (see chart above). 

These results are especially significant because female high school students are generally better students overall than males, and equally or better prepared for the SAT Math test than male students:

a. Females outnumbered males in the top 10% of their 2011 graduating classes - there were 127 female students in the top 10% of high school classes for every 100 male students (56% female to 44% male).

b. Nationwide, there were 144 female high school students with GPAs of A+ for every 100 males (59% female vs. 41% male). 

c. Females had a higher average GPA of 3.40 compared to 3.27 on average for male students in 2011. 

 d. More high school girls than boys took advanced AP/honors math classes in high school (117 females per 100 males) and science classes (122 females per 100 males).

e. More high school girls (54%) than boys (46%) studied mathematics for four years in high school, and those percentages were the same for students studying four years of high school science.

Bottom Line: Despite being better prepared academically by many different measures, both overall and for mathematics specifically, female high school students score significantly lower on the SAT math test, and the 30-point differences in test scores favoring males has persisted since Richard Nixon was president.  At the high end of math performance, high school males significantly outperformed their female counterparts on the 2011 SAT math test - for test scores of 750-800 there were more than 183 males for every 100 females achieving at that level. 

Despite the huge differences in math performance by gender (both on average and at the high end of performance), we frequently hear statements like this: "There just aren't gender differences anymore in math performance," says Universityof Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Janet Hyde, "So parents and teachers need to revise their thoughts about this.  Stereotypes are very, very resistant to change, but as a scientist I have to challenge them with data."

Given the significant and persistent gender differences in SAT math test scores that have persisted over many generations, the scientific data about gender differences in math performance would seem to present a serious challenge to Professor Hyde's claims of no gender differences in math performance.