What is the average rating in the USCF?

 They're not.

 Good

the USCF is still using the elo rating system then?

No.  It's a new system that takes the old USCF rating system and applies a pure math algorithm to it.  It shares many of Glicko's attributes, and is apparently one of Mark Glickman's projects, but it maintains almost all of the flavor (rating floors, bonus points, age bias, etc.) of the USCF's outdated system.  It is also much more detailed than Glicko.  Hardly anyone uses the pure Elo anymore - it exists as a scientific curiosity.

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/rating.system.pdf

Thankyou Niven42, much appreciated.

no probs, BigFuzzyOne sounds like a reasonable conclusion to arrive at.

Around 1980 I spent 4 years in Germany.  I would play in tournaments    in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, etc. I also played for a German chess club.  We met every Thursday and played a team match once a month on Sunday's against another pub.  Europeans are very serious about their chess. USCF tournaments were rare with small turnouts.  They are getting bigger but it will take time.

i researched this once when i was in college in 2014 and got actual stats for it. i lost the document :/ because it was in my school email and i forgot how to log in into it, but if i remember right the overall average of all all time players wasn't higher than 1040 otb in regular and that state by state it varied widely so if you're around that level you're already doing pretty good i reckon/are better than half the people who ever get rated. and if you consider that there's at least 1 person not rated for every person rated that knows how to play but doesn't often or very well i reckon you're doing pretty good

redid the study in december/add me up as a friend to see my blog the 1000's accurate for currently active USCF players i found, while the actual average is around 700 across the board for people who've played in uscf tournaments.

As of about 5 days ago the 50th percentile was 968.  That's not the average but the median.  But I'm guessing the average would be close to that. 

Edit:  I know this is an old thread but these are interesting stats at any time.

What is USCF?

United States Chess Federation.  When u hear people say "my uscf" they're referring to their uscf rating.  Over the board live, real tournament rating in U.S. tournaments. 

It's so sad looking at forums from 2010 and before. It's all serious chess players who are asking questions and getting mature, thought out answers. Compare that to the 99 percent of forums that are filled with trolls these days 

There was a thread where someone asked "why isn't anyone replying?" five times in an hour. After telling him that the forums are not a chat room, he said, "why not?" (this person made twenty posts in a row)

I returned to chess, after a 45 year absence, during the pandemic.  A major change  in USCF between now and then is the (relatively) huge number of kids -- scholastic players.  As I am rather statistically oriented, I picked up that this great number of children (1) reflects the increased popularity of chess and (2) has skewed the statistical profile of chess rather far to the left -- resulting in a younger and lower rated bulge in the lower rated ranks.

For example, long ago I was rated in the 5th percentile for ratings; upon my return I leapt up to about the 45th percentile ... without playing a single additional game.

It would be nice to have the data to define the ratings curve for USCF.  It seems clear, if only from bits and pieces of data, that the average "adult" tournament player is several hundreds of ratings point above both the average scholastic player and above the average player overall.   Ditto on the median.

Thus, without adequate data, it becomes very difficult to generalize about USCF statistics.

apparently there is no clear answer and i want to ask im ten and im 987 rated is that good?