By PAMELA GOULD

Students at Culpeper High School and Colonial Forge High School exceeded the national and statewide averages on all three tests of the SAT college-entrance exam for 2012, according to results released Monday.

Culpeper High students had the highest combined score among the Fredericksburg region's public schools, at 1,569.

"We're very pleased with those scores," Culpeper Superintendent Bobbi Johnson said after getting the results.

She said the school has been working on SAT preparation with students and "beefing up" instruction. But she said she wants to work with school administrators to get a clearer idea of what may have led to the improvement.

Virginia's high school seniors as a whole and across all ethnic groups outperformed the national average on all three tests that make up the SAT in 2012.

The College Board, which administers the SAT, released state and national results on Monday. The Virginia Department of Education distributed results for individual schools and divisions.

The statewide average for public school students on critical reading was 508, 17 points higher than the national average. The state average for math was 510, five points higher than the national average. Virginia students averaged 492 on the writing test, 11 points higher than nationally.

A perfect score on each test is 800, for a possible total of 2,400.

The 113 seniors at Culpeper High who took the SAT recorded an average score of 537 on the critical reading test, 524 on the math test and 508 on the writing test, data from the Virginia Department of Education show.

Colonial Forge students were among the region's top performers for the third year in a row. However, their combined total of 1,554 was 15 points below the Class of 2011.

The Class of 2012 scored an average of 523 on reading, 522 on math and 509 on writing. Some 383 students took the test.

Fredericksburg Academy, a private school in Spotsylvania County, again had the highest scores in the region.

All 28 of Fredericksburg Academy's seniors took the exam and had scores well above the state average, for a combined total of 1,779.

Fredericksburg Christian High School students also surpassed the state and national averages in 2012, with a combined total of 1,559.