While Georgia’s Class of 2021 beating the national average for SAT scores by 39 points was an achievement all on its own, Habersham’s schools are in the spotlight as they climbed above state and regional averages. Habersham County posted the highest SAT scores in Northeast Georgia with a mean score of 1104, Superintendent Matthew Cooper announced Monday night at the Board of Education Meeting.
Habersham County’s SAT scores this past year topped Habersham’s record high, and not just records in the county, Habersham scored the highest average score out of all 13 school systems in the Northeast Georgia region. The region includes for White, Hall, Union, Lumpkin, Stephens, Gainesville City, Towns, Fannin, Dawson, Franklin, Banks, Rabun and Hart county schools.
For some perspective, Cooper says the school system was in 11th place in the region for SAT scores in 2015.
Habersham County’s average SAT score was 24 points higher than the state-wide SAT score average and 63 points higher than the national average, he reports.
“That makes me smile, I’m very proud of that for Habersham County,” says Habersham Central High School Principal Jonathan Stribling. “I will tell you and my colleagues here, […] SAT scores aren’t developed at Habersham Central High School. That doesn’t happen, but [they are] developed in our school system. It starts early and those skills are developed all the way up.”
HCHS students had a mean score of 563 in writing and 541 in math.
Along with Habersham’s high SAT scores, the school system is also at its highest graduation rate of all time: 95 percent. Stribling shared that around 62 percent of Habersham Central’s graduating seniors will leave Central with HOPE Scholarship-eligible GPAs.
“Principal Stribling and I had some private conversations when our [SAT] scores started improving and wondered ‘I wonder if we could be number one someday,'” Cooper said. “Well, someday is here, Principal Stribling.”
This article has been updated to reflect corrected SAT scores.
