TEAS Scores Explained: What Your Number Actually Means

There is no universal passing score on the TEAS — that is the first honest thing to say on a page about TEAS scores. The number that decides anything is the one your program publishes. ATI's own FAQ describes a competitive score as typically around 70–75%, and the published floors we track run from 58.6% to 70%, with the most competitive programs looking for 80% and up. Everything else on this page exists to help you turn those numbers into a target.

How the TEAS is actually scored

The TEAS reports every score on a 0–100% scale, but not every score on your report is the same kind of number.

Your total score and your four content area scores (Reading, Math, Science, English) are equated: based on your percentage correct, then adjusted for differences between test forms, so that a score earned on a harder form means the same thing as one earned on an easier form. An equated score is not raw percent correct, and it cannot be computed by hand.

Your sub-content area scores — the line items like "human anatomy and physiology" — are the opposite: plain raw percent correct within that sub-area, not equated at all.

ATI states outright that the pieces don't add up: content area scores cannot be used to calculate the total score, and sub-content scores cannot be used to calculate content area scores. Follow that to its conclusion before you buy anything from anyone: no practice product can compute, predict, or estimate your official TEAS score, because the administrator's own published mechanics rule it out. Only ATI's equating produces that number. What practice can honestly give you is raw percent correct and where your minutes went — which is exactly what diagnosis needs.

Of the 170 questions you answer, 150 are scored; 20 are unscored pretest items that are not identified to you.

The V7 preparedness bands

Alongside the percentages, ATI maps your total score to an Academic Preparedness Level. These are the current TEAS 7 bands:

Source: ATI's published TEAS Version 7 Academic Preparedness Levels.

One warning: an older, TEAS-6-era version of this table — Proficient topping out at 77.3%, Advanced starting at 78% — still circulates on prep sites. Those boundaries are wrong for TEAS 7. If a page shows you "Advanced 78–90%", it is quoting the old exam.

So what is a good TEAS score?

A good TEAS score is your program's published requirement plus a margin — nothing more philosophical than that.

The reference points, from most general to most specific: ATI's FAQ calls roughly 70–75% competitive, and notes most schools want the Proficient band or above. The published school minimums we track — verified at each school's own page run from 58.6% (University of Arkansas–Fort Smith) up to 70% (Texas State), with Towson reporting a competitive average of 85–86%.

And watch for a rule most score pages skip: some programs gate on more than the composite. Cal State East Bay requires 70% overall plus 65% in Reading and 65% in English; LA City College holds each subject category to 62.0% on a retake. A composite that clears the bar can still fail a section gate — which is why your diagnostic needs section-level numbers, not one total. The only requirement that matters is on your program's admissions page.

If your diagnostic run lands below your target, the gap is a planning input, not a verdict — the study plan is built around exactly that measurement.

What about the "average" TEAS score?

Here is the part most score pages get wrong: ATI has not published a national mean for TEAS 7. ATI confirms that normative data — national means and percentile ranks — were updated for Version 7, but it has not published the figure. The averages you see quoted on prep sites are TEAS-6-era numbers or unsourced estimates. We don't show a national average because the current one doesn't exist in public, and we don't show percentiles because we won't invent a comparison population. Your program's cut score is the benchmark that actually decides anything.

When you get your score, and how long it lasts

Online sittings show a preliminary score at completion; the finalized score arrives within three business days, and one transcript credit is included with registration. Scores are typically valid for about two years — but that window is set by the school, and some are stricter: Excelsior, for example, only accepts scores from the past year.

If you need to retest: ATI requires 14 days between attempts on ATI-administered exams. Everything past that — attempt limits, longer waits, whether your first, last, or highest score counts — is set by your school, and the rules differ sharply from program to program.

How we report scores — and what we refuse to report

Our full-length TEAS simulator scores every run as raw percent correct — overall, per section, per sub-content area — labeled plainly: Raw percent correct. The official TEAS reports equated (adjusted) scores, so your real score will differ. We map your raw score onto ATI's published V7 bands above, with that caveat attached. We do not predict your official score, because ATI's own scoring mechanics make that impossible, and we will not show you a percentile until we have real user data to base one on.

For the full exam format behind these numbers — sections, timing, question types — see the TEAS 7 format guide.