By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff Writer
More Beaufort County high-school students took the SAT in 2010, but their overall performance on the exam dropped slightly when compared to the previous year’s results, in contrast to other students across the state and nation, according to a report released Monday by The College Board.
Don Phipps, superintendent of Beaufort County Schools, said it is important to remember that the SAT is intended to measure a student’s potential instead of knowledge, as is the case with the ACT.
“We can never be satisfied as long as there is a decline in scores,” Phipps said. “However, it must be taken into consideration that the SAT measures a student’s potential more than the student’s acquired knowledge like the ACT test.”
Phipps said he is pleased with the rise in the number of students in the county’s public schools who are taking the SAT.
“In a time of economic crisis for so many people, it is a pleasant surprise to see the number of students taking the SAT in our county rise considerably. This may be a sign of more students planning earlier for college,” he said.
Students at Northside High School performed better on the SAT than the state and national averages, and Beaufort County students on average performed better than students in several neighboring counties, according to the report.
For 2010, Beaufort County’s average combined SAT score was 966, 17 points lower than the county average in 2009 and 14 points lower than the county average in 2008. In 2010, the average math score for Beaufort County students was 497, and the average critical-reading score was 469, according to the report.
At 1018 — 531 in math and 487 in critical reading — the average combined SAT score at Northside High School in 2010 was the only score in Beaufort County above the state average, according to the report. In 2009, the average SAT score at Northside High School was 1016, and in 2008 it was 1034, both above the statewide average for those years.
The average combined SAT score at Southside High School in 2010 was 911 — 475 in math and 436 in critical reading. In 2009, the average SAT score at Southside High School was 992, and in 2008 it was 966, according to the report.
The average combined SAT score at Washington High School in 2010 was 969 — 493 in math and 476 in critical reading. In 2009, the average SAT score at Washington High School was 970, and in 2008 it was 965, according to the report.
Statewide, the average SAT score in North Carolina in 2010 was 1008 when the average scores on the critical-reading and mathematics segments of the test are combined. Math scores stayed at 511 for the third consecutive year. Scores moved up in critical reading by two points to 497. 
The national average score is 1017, with a score of 516 for math and a score of 501 for reading.
“I congratulate the Class of 2010 for a strong performance on the SAT,” said State Superintendent June Atkinson in a statement released Monday. “Our scores over time have shown that more students are on the right track for success in college. We know we have areas for improvement, but I am pleased that more students are preparing to continue their education after high school.”
Of neighboring counties, students in Craven County Schools, at 1007; Pamlico County Schools, at 974; and Pitt County Schools, at 994, had a higher average combined SAT score than students in Beaufort County’s public schools in 2010. Students in Hyde County had an average SAT score of 856; in Martin County, students had an average SAT score of 954; in Tyrrell County, students had an average SAT score of 924; and in Washington County, students had an average SAT score of 809, according to the report.
In addition to reading and math, the SAT includes a writing component, although that component is not commonly reported as part of the combined SAT scores. The writing component has been included in the test since March 2005.
On the writing test, North Carolina students earned an average score of 477, a three-point drop from 2009 when it was 480. Nationwide, students taking the SAT earned an average of 492 on the writing test, down one point from 2009.
In Beaufort County, scores on the writing test in 2010 were 438, a drop of 22 points from 2009 and a drop of 23 points from 2008. Students at Northside High School performed the best of the three county high schools included in the report, with a writing test score of 455 as compared to 443 for Washington High School and 410 for Southside High School, according to the report.
Students at the Beaufort County Early College High School, now in its third year of operation, did not take the SAT in 2010.
The 2010 SAT report showed North Carolina had a larger number of students, 57,841, take the SAT than any other class in the state’s history. A total of 63 percent of the state’s 2010 high-school graduates took the SAT. Nationally, 47 percent of the Class of 2010 took the SAT.
In Beaufort County, 206 high-school graduates, or 47.8 percent of all high-school graduates in the county, took the SAT in 2010, up from 2009 when 166 high-school graduates, or 41 percent of all high-school graduates in the county, took the test and from 2008 when 179 high-school graduates, or 47.1 percent of all high-school graduates, took the exam, according to the report.
The test scores reported Monday are based on the most recent SAT exam taken by public and private-school graduating seniors in 2010. 
The SAT is one of the college-admissions tests widely accepted and required by colleges and universities and the one most commonly taken in North Carolina. Of entering freshmen at East Carolina University in 2009, 75 percent scored at least 960 on the SAT; at N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 75 percent scored at least 1080; at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 75 percent scored at least 1210 on the SAT; at Duke University, 75 percent scored at least 1340, according to the North Carolina SAT report.