The College Board has released its annual SAT testing report. As expected, the total number of students in the class of 2026 taking the test declined versus the previous year, due to Illinois switching from the SAT to the ACT. The number of SAT test takers declined by 2.5% from 2.005 million to 1.954 million. In addition, the number of students participating in SAT School Day (taking the test during a normal school day in their own high school) declined from 1.36 million to 1.26 million.

Excerpts from the College Board press release

Overall, more than 1.95 million students in the class of 2026 took the SAT, a modest 2.5% decrease from the class of 2025 and the first decrease in participation since the pandemic-affected class of 2021. In most areas, the SAT continued to grow, with participation increasing from last year in 42 states and the District of Columbia, and international SAT participation rising 13.5%, reflecting continued growth in global reach.

Participation in SAT Weekend grew for the second straight year, both in the number of students tested and as a share of the total cohort. That growth was made possible by the thousands of schools and local communities across the U.S. and around the world that partnered with us to open their doors as test centers, enabling 2.1 million SAT Weekend tests this year. Growth was especially strong outside the United States, where the SAT increasingly serves as a passport to higher education opportunities worldwide—a single, trusted credential that travels with students wherever they choose to apply.

SAT School Day accounted for 65% of SAT takers in the class of 2026, with more than 10,000 schools offering the program during the 2025-26 school year. Though participation decreased slightly from last year due to some statewide testing shifts, the widespread use of the program continues to emphasize the important role school-day testing plays in providing broad access to the SAT.

The mean total SAT score for the class of 2026 was 1045, a 16-point increase over the class of 2025 and the second consecutive year of score gains, with increases across all demographic groups. Average scores rose in both sections: Reading and Writing scores increased 7 points to 528, returning to pre-pandemic levels, while Math scores improved 9 points to 517, though that remains below the 2020 cohort’s pre-pandemic 523 average.

In the class of 2026, 42% of SAT takers met or exceeded both the Reading and Writing and Math college and career readiness benchmarks—indicating a likelihood of success in credit-bearing coursework across the postsecondary pathways that lead to careers, from four-year degrees to certificate and workforce training programs. Benchmark achievement approached pre-pandemic levels, when 45% of the class of 2019 demonstrated college and career readiness in both sections.

More than 1.3 million students in the class of 2026 had SAT scores that affirmed or exceeded their high school GPA—meaning their SAT score was a point of strength on their college application. That was true for more than 82% of Black and Latino students (up two points from last year), nearly 80% of first-generation students, and more than 81% of students from small towns and rural communities, with these trends remaining stable over the past several years.

 
[Matt notes: The significant increase in mean SAT scores nationally was probably due in part to the recent simplification and shortening of the test. The other recent adoption of adaptive scoring (in which students who do poorly on questions in the early portions of test sections are thereafter asked less difficult questions) may also have played a part in rising SAT scores. In order to get a better read on this, several years of data in which fundamental changes to the test are not made will be required.]

 
The Los Angeles Times reports on increased SAT testing among California students, despite test blind or test optional policies of many public colleges and universities in the state.

[Excerpts]

California high school students are increasingly taking the SAT, as more universities are again requiring standardized tests for admission and as the University of California is debating whether to reinstate its test requirement amid concerns over academic preparedness.

In all, 138,763 California class of 2026 students took the SAT, up 12.6% from the prior year — and the largest gain in three years — according to data released Tuesday from the College Board, the nonprofit organization that develops and proctors the SAT.

Though the UC and California State University systems do not use the SAT or other standardized tests in admissions decisions, an increasing number of universities have reinstated testing requirements after many suspended them during the height of the pandemic, including the University of Texas, all Ivy League schools, Stanford and Caltech.

Priscilla Rodriguez, the College Board’s senior vice president of College Readiness Assessments, said that shift probably contributed to the increase in California test takers.

“They want to have a score to keep all these options open,” Rodriguez said, adding that the College Board has also done more to make the test more readily available.

Though the state’s public universities still don’t use scores from the SAT and the similar ACT exam in admissions, they do use the exams as one factor in determining course placement. For example, does a student need to take an entry-level math class or can they skip ahead to more advanced mathematics?

UC is currently reevaluating its SAT testing policy amid faculty concerns that many students are especially ill-prepared in math.

For the 2026 high school class, students sent their SAT scores to schools that require it for admissions and those that do not. USC, for example, remains test optional, meaning students can choose to have their scores considered in the admission process, but doing so is not mandatory.

Amid pushback from faculty concerned over student preparedness, UC Regents are now engaging in what they have described as a months-long process to decide whether to reinstate SAT requirements.

Rodriguez said the current reevaluation at UC began after most 2026 graduates took the SAT and probably didn’t factor into the increase reported Tuesday, but she expects the debate to lead to even more test takers this year.

“We are ready for that,” she said.

Jacqueline Villatoro, a college counselor at Linda Marquez High School, said most students at the Huntington Park campus take the SAT, because it’s offered for free during school hours. But in the last year, she said she’s noticed more students retaking it to improve their scores, because the private schools they are interested in once again require it.

“When they went test optional, kids were not taking it again,” Villatoro said.

 
[Matt note: While the number of SAT takers in California has been increasing in recent years, the class of 2026 number of 139,000 is not even half of the peak total of 285,000 (for students in the class of 2020).]

 
CalMatters offers a detailed look at the current controversy within the University of California regarding the possible return of SAT/ACT mandates.

[Excerpts]

Ever since the University of California stopped using the SAT and ACT for freshman admissions in 2020, graduation rates have inched up, and the number of students returning for their second year of studies increased.

To backers of keeping the UC test-free, these are clear signs that ditching the SAT hasn’t resulted in broad academic declines at the venerable public university system.

But this progress is likely to compete with another truth: Thousands of UC professors say their students are absolutely not ready for college and blame the decision to cut the SAT. Now UC leaders are re-examining what, if anything, the system should do about the standardized tests the UC scrapped six years ago.

When a UC task force in 2020 recommended that the UC keep the SAT, it warned that dropping the test could result in declining student retention rates. Those prognostications didn’t materialize. The task force also expressed fear that first-year GPAs would drop without it, but new system-wide data show average freshman GPAs have actually increased since 2021, the first year of new students entering under the new no-SAT regime.

When the board voted unanimously to end the use of the SAT and ACT, some members, including the UC’s then-president, Janet Napolitano, described the tests as legacies of discrimination. At least one prominent academic who wanted to keep the test agreed, but argued the test was still valuable.

“The main reason we are looking at SATs is because they are racist,” said Kum-Kum Bhavnani, chair of the Academic Senate at the time of the 2020 regents meeting when the board voted to sink the test. But “the way in which the UC uses them stops them from being racist” because admissions officers used the test results as one of 14 factors in assessing applications. The Academic Senate endorsed keeping the SAT.

The regents, including Napolitano, decided that despite the benefits the SAT offered, they did not outweigh how the test seemed to favor rich students over poor students, many of whom are students of color.

However, in a recent interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Napolitano indicated she’d be open to revisiting the use of the SAT in admissions, but cautioned that faculty overstate the test’s powers. “I don’t think the SAT is a solution to the question of whether students are adequately prepared,” said Napolitano, now a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. “It’s not a silver bullet.”

Still, she said admissions officials should use the SAT, “recognizing what it tells you and what it doesn’t tell you.”

Before dumping the test, ultra-selective UCLA admitted students with a wide range of SAT scores. The admissions office didn’t rely on a single cut-off score, said Gary Clark, UCLA’s associate vice chancellor of enrollment management, during a September regents meeting.

In 2019, 50% of admitted students had SAT scores between 1280 and 1530 out of 1600, Clark said. Individual student context is key, he said, and UCLA’s admissions office also relied on 14 factors, including test scores. One of those factors was whether students made the most of their time in high school. One student with a 4.3 GPA may be ranked lower than another student with the same grades because UCLA reviews to what extent students took advantage of the honors and advanced courses available to them. Since the SAT ban, retention and graduation rates increased at UCLA, he added.

Kim Wilcox was chancellor of UC Riverside until 2025 and supports using the SAT in admissions. All admissions indicators are biased against low-income students, he said in a phone interview. “It doesn’t matter what measure you have, GPA and SAT scores as well. They’re all higher for rich kids than they are for poor kids,” he said. “So with a set of biased measures, are you better with more of them or fewer of them? I would argue more.”

SAT skeptics argue that supporters of the test overstate its predictive value and that they champion an approach to admissions that would needlessly exclude more students from UC. Placing limits on who can enroll by relying on what they say is a flawed assessment has no place at a public university supported by taxpayer money, they contend.

Many of those views were synthesized in a lengthy report in September written by Jesse Rothstein, professor of public policy and economics at UC Berkeley and a critic of using the SAT in admissions.

SAT critics say whatever may be happening in entry-level math courses isn’t translating into overall college struggles, given the higher first-year GPAs, share of students coming back after their first year and the overall graduation rates. If students are generally ready for college but need support in specific math classes, the UC should provide that support and not prevent the student from otherwise entering, the critics say.

“If there are problems in preparation, what is UC doing about it?” asked Amanda Mangaser Savage in a phone interview. She’s a litigator with Public Counsel, the legal group that played a key role in forcing the UC to drop the SAT in admissions.

“Does imposing a barrier in the form of the SAT really address that specific problem,” Savage said, “or is it just designed to make life easier, frankly, for faculty that don’t want to be teaching students who have learning needs?”

If the UC revives the SAT for admissions, Public Counsel may sue again, Savage said.

Critics of the SAT also say the arguments to bring back the test overlook declines in the math readiness of college students that predate the UC’s decision to stop using the SAT for admissions.

 
Nanette Asimov of the San Francisco Chronicle has written an article with quotes from many college admissions counselors regarding student testing choices amidst widespread test optional policies.

[Excerpts]

College counselors are left to untangle the uncertainty and advise students and parents — with certainty — what to do about college admissions tests: Take them anyway? Several other top schools around the country have reinstated the requirement, so that might make sense. Don’t bother? The vast majority of colleges do not require the admissions tests.

And what about today’s high school sophomores and freshmen — should they assume scores will be required when it’s their turn to apply to UC?

Wisdom about whether students should take the tests, when to do so and why — even if UC doesn’t look at the scores — varies from adviser to adviser.

“I’d rather have a student have a test score they don’t need, than need a score they don’t have,” said Robin Freed, director of counseling at the private advising firm IvyWise, offering up a maxim some applicants are bound to appreciate.

Freed says the tests also offer a useful way for students to improve their college-level reading and math, whether schools require them or not.

Most schools don’t. Just 7% of four-year colleges in the U.S. require SAT or ACT scores — 151 schools, including Stanford and the eight Ivies — according to FairTest, an anti-testing nonprofit that tracks admissions exams across 2,089 schools. Today, the vast majority of four-year schools, 89%, give students the option of submitting scores, and fewer than 4% do not accept them, including UC and California State University.

Even so, “You absolutely should plan to take one of those tests and invest the time to prepare,” said Freed, adding that any school could change its policy suddenly and require the exam.

Hold on — it’s not that simple, cautioned Karla Salazar, executive director of ScholarMatch, a college counseling nonprofit in San Francisco that prioritizes support for students who are the first in their families to attend.

“Unless it’s required, our recommendation is that students don’t need to take it,” Salazar said. “There’s a cost — time taken away from working. And you have to study for it. There’s no divine intervention; people spend a lot of money preparing for these tests. It’s an investment.”

Test prep classes typically charge families anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on whether the help is delivered online, in group classes or through personalized instruction.

ScholarMatch advises applicants to strategize by checking the typical test scores of students who get into each school — information that can be found on college websites and in a Chronicle data analysis and tool.

“If the student believes they can meet or exceed these, submitting test scores may benefit their application. Otherwise, they may not want to take the test or submit test scores,” ScholarMatch guidelines say.

For example, high school students who check Stanford’s website will find that 98.4% of students admitted this fall earned a composite SAT score of at least 1400 out of 1600 on the math and reading/writing sections. That’s at least 700 out of a possible 800 per section.

On the ACT, 99.2% of this year’s Stanford admits earned a composite score of at least 30, the average earned across English, math and reading. The highest possible score is 36. Science became optional in 2025.

“If a student aspires to go to an Ivy League school where admissions tests are required, we have the resources to help them,” Salazar said. Otherwise, “our recommendation is that they don’t have to take the test.”

Despite the flood of new applicants and the lack of admissions testing, the regents also learned Wednesday that in 2025, the university’s freshman retention rate (93%) and its four-year graduation rate (74%) had reached record highs.

“If a student aspires to go to an Ivy League school where admissions tests are required, we have the resources to help them,” Salazar said. Otherwise, “our recommendation is that they don’t have to take the test.”

Counselors who specialize in low-income applicants are not the only ones advising UC hopefuls to wait.

“If I had a student who was only applying to UC schools, I would have them hold off for now on taking the test until given more direction about the change in policy,” said Michelle McAnaney, founder of College Spy, a private counseling firm in New York.

Again, it’s strategy. “Instead of doing test prep when they don’t need to, students could be focusing on their schoolwork,” McAnaney said. “It’s a better use of time.”

Yet she noted a key reason many professors say they want UC to restore the SAT/ACT: high school grade inflation.

“Everyone might be getting an A, but not everyone is getting a 1500 on the SAT.”

Despite her advice that UC-focused applicants hold off, nearly all of McAnaney’s students take the SAT or ACT, even when applying to test-optional colleges.

“It’s because I’ve advised them to take it,” she said. “I’m telling them this can be very helpful.”

It’s a strategy that gives students options, she said. Those with below-average scores don’t have to submit them.

Yet the future of admissions testing at UC remains an open question. Following a presentation Wednesday about the history of admissions testing at UC, at least one regent indicated that he is leaning toward restoring the requirement. Regent Jay Sures said he has come to believe that the SAT and ACT tests are “much better predictor of college success” than he believed when he voted to get rid of the tests during the pandemic.

“I might have made a mistake,” he said of that vote.

UC has promised that applicants will have plenty of warning if regents abandon their no-test policy.

CSU officials said they have no plan to reinstate the SAT/ACT.