Kentucky has signed a contract with the College Board to switch from the ACT to the SAT exam, but implementation of the SAT has been put on hold pending a protest:

[Excerpts]

For nearly 20 years, Kentucky public school juniors have been required to take the ACT—a standardized test tied to college admissions. But this school year, the Kentucky Department of Education said students will take the SAT instead.

The change has thrown many teachers and students for a loop and has left them wondering how to prepare.

The Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, might be unfamiliar to many Kentucky students, but Dr. Shaan Patel—who earned a perfect SAT score—told FOX 56 the test may be a positive change.

“It’s a shorter exam, you have more time per question, you have less than 100 questions on the entire exam, there’s no more obscure vocabulary, the reading passages are shorter,” said Patel.

Over the summer, the Kentucky Department of Education announced a new contract that had been awarded to the College Board, which administers the SAT.

However, the decision has since been appealed, pausing the contract, which delays guidance for teachers and students until further notice.

“We understand how critical it is to offer that guidance to schools, to our parents, to students who are entering their junior year and so they can make decisions and be prepared for when the time comes,” said Associate Commissioner of the Office of Assessment and Accountability Jennifer Stafford in a July 15 webcast.

In a statement sent to FOX 56, a spokesperson for the department said KDE will not comment further on the change until the protest is resolved.

But officials did note that many school districts are already familiar with the College Board through Advanced Placement (AP) courses and exams. Other benefits include an expanded test-taking window.

“So, districts could choose when they would like to take the test, as in within that window, as opposed to it has to be at 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning at a certain time,” said Kentucky’s Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher.

 
SFGATE reports that 600 students were unable to take scheduled SAT exams due to a technical issue. This incident shows that the recently-unveiled digital SAT continues to have issues, and that the attempt to increase the number of testing sites available after closures in recent years (particularly on the west coast) has resulted in a difficult environment at some venues.

[Excerpts]

A chaotic scene unfolded over the weekend in San Francisco after hundreds of hopeful college students weren’t able to take the SAT, just ahead of application season.

Rowan, a senior at Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, was one of them. After sitting through heavy traffic then walking four blocks, she arrived at the Moscone Center early Saturday morning and navigated through a swarm of anxious, sleep-deprived teenagers.

But after several hours of waiting, Rowan told SFGATE she wasn’t able to take the test at all. She was one of 600 students who missed their opportunity because of a Wi-Fi issue at the venue.

“I was pretty dismayed,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, God.’ I really just wanted this to be over with. It was frustrating.”

In a statement to SFGATE, the College Board said more than 4,000 students were scheduled Saturday to take the test, which is administered in a digital format as of last year. Administrators successfully tested the Wi-Fi on Friday, the organization said, but had “issues” with it Saturday morning.

Even before the Wi-Fi issues started, Rowan described the scene at the Moscone Center as hectic.

“There was an enormous room that kind of felt like an airport, like crisscrossing lines of people everywhere,” Rowan said. “There was like a small number of somewhat stressed looking employees trying to give everyone the information they needed, but it seemed like there wasn’t enough.”

She said she and her peers then had to wait several hours in the testing room to start the exam before finally realizing their fate.

The College Board told parents and students that they would be refunded for Saturday’s exam and, if they were unable to actually take the SAT, would receive more information about a makeup test in the future, according to an email viewed by SFGATE.

Katherine, a senior at a San Francisco private school (whose last name is omitted at her request, in accordance with our ethics policy), was able to take the exam. But, similar to Rowan, she said it was a challenge to cope with the turbulent environment.

Katherine told SFGATE she waited in crowds that were crammed into every corner of the room. Then, after starting the test, she had a difficult time focusing as background noise echoed off the walls — and even had to move testing rooms.

Technical issues have also been a troublesome pattern since the test went online. Last year, SFGATE reported that 1,400 students were turned away in Oakland after Wi-Fi issues forced the cancellation of the test. At the time, the next available tests in the Bay Area were months out.

Currently, there is an SAT scheduled once every month until June. But the College Board website shows that for the next test, on Sept. 13, the only available seats within 100 miles of San Francisco are in Soquel, Hollister, Seaside and Turlock.

 
The San Francisco Chronicle has additional coverage of the SAT testing problem.

[Excerpts]

A few hours after she dropped her daughter off at the Moscone Center on Saturday to take the SAT, Elizabeth Mitchiner texted to ask how it went. Her daughter’s reply made her heart sink.

“Her first response was ‘awful,’” said Mitchiner, who lives in San Francisco. “I thought, ‘Oh no — that means the test was terrible, and she must feel like she did terribly.’”

It turned out the test material wasn’t the issue — it was the venue.

Lily Mitchiner was having her fourth go at the test, her mother said, after taking it twice before at Lowell High School and once at the Hilton by Union Square. A senior at the Urban School of San Francisco, her daughter had already scored well on the SAT, Elizabeth said, but she encouraged her daughter to test once more to improve her chances of scoring merit scholarships for college.

Of the 4,000 students who showed up at Moscone Center to take the SAT, about 600 did not complete the test due to Wi-Fi problems. Those who could didn’t have a good experience.

“She gave me a few little snippets by text and then I got the full story when she got home. She couldn’t believe how crazy it was,” Elizabeth said of her daughter.

Lily was using her laptop to take the SAT, a standard practice by the College Board since completing its transition to the digital format in the U.S. in March 2024. Inside the convention center, Lily told the Chronicle, issues began when some of the students had trouble connecting to the venue’s Wi-Fi. Overhead announcements soon echoed throughout the convention center, instructing students on what to do, even after the exam had started, Lily said.

“I did my first reading module, you know, it was fine. I heard some announcements go on, but I was trying to tune it out because I was trying to read,” she said.

Though the testing venue was divided into multiple sections, separated by curtains, she said it was apparent that groups were on different schedules. She remembered seeing students moving around the room with their computers, trying to find a better signal. At one point, she was startled by heavy screaming and cheering from another section of the convention center, which she later learned was because those students were released early after experiencing Wi-Fi issues during the entire testing session.

At another point, she heard what sounded like a forklift entering the hall and starting to move the tables and chairs that had been left open.

“I feel like I could have done so much better had I been in a focused and quiet environment,” Lily said. “But more than anything, honestly, I was really grateful, because I think I was in one of the only rooms on my side of the convention center that didn’t have to leave.”

 
Campus Reform reports that the Pentagon school system is considering allowing the classical testing as an alternative to SAT and ACT.

[Excerpts]

The Department of Defense’s federally operated school system may soon allow students to take the Classic Learning Test (CLT), a classical education–based alternative to the SAT and ACT.

The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), which serves about 70,000 students across 160 schools in the United States and abroad, would administer the exam if Congress adopts language included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is leading the initiative through the Promote Classical Learning Act. His proposal would require U.S. military service academies to accept the CLT for admissions and mandate DoDEA schools to administer it to all 11th graders.

Banks recently told The Federalist that the measure would ensure that “talented students from every educational background” can compete for military academy admission.

“Many homeschool students take the CLT, which focuses on reading, logic, and classic texts in a way other tests don’t,” Banks said. “Putting this into law would ensure future administrations can’t unilaterally undo what Secretary Hegseth is trying to achieve.”

The CLT consists of three sections: Verbal Reasoning, Grammar/Writing, and Quantitative Reasoning. It is currently accepted at more than 300 colleges and universities, including the University of Florida in Gainesville, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Hillsdale College in Michigan, and the University of Dallas.

Supporters argue the test restores rigor missing from other standardized exams. Jeremy Wayne Tate, founder and CEO of the CLT, said in a press release that service academy applicants “should have the opportunity to demonstrate their academic aptitude through an admissions assessment grounded in the classical tradition—a tradition that has historically underpinned the intellectual rigor and excellence of these institutions.”

The SAT has drawn criticism in recent years after the College Board announced changes to shorten the test and remove sections. Advocates of the CLT contend that the exam maintains higher standards by emphasizing logic, grammar, and primary texts rather than adaptive digital modules.

The Pentagon school system operates in 11 countries as well as on U.S. military bases. If the NDAA provision is adopted, DoDEA would become the first federally run school system to require the CLT.

 
A recent study suggests that test optional policies have resulted in more diverse student bodies.

[Excerpts]

Universities that have eliminated standardized test requirements for admissions in recent years generally experienced gains in diversity in their student bodies, according to research by the University of California, Davis. However, if the universities also faced recent financial shortfalls or enrollment declines, or continued to prioritize quantitative academic criteria such as test scores and class rank, these gains in diversity diminished or disappeared.

The paper, "Same Policy, No Standardized Outcome: How Admissions Values and Institutional Priorities Shape the Effect of Test-Optional Policies on Campus Diversity," was published in the American Sociological Review.

"Although test-optional admissions policies are often adopted with the assumption that they will broaden access to underrepresented minority groups, the effectiveness of these policies in increasing student diversity appears to depend on existing admissions values and institutional priorities at the university," said Greta Hsu, co-author of the paper. Hsu is a UC Davis professor in the Graduate School of Management who studies organizational behavior.

Colleges that give much weight to test scores—while not requiring them—show no significant increase in enrolling underrepresented students for three years following a change in testing policy.

In contrast, colleges that give less weight to test scores show a slight 2% increase in enrollment of underrepresented students in the same period. Researchers said additional recruitment and individual university efforts to strengthen student body diversity could affect those numbers but were not studied.

In addition to examining the metrics colleges report valuing when making admissions decisions, the researchers looked at whether colleges were facing institutional pressures, such as from financial or enrollment shortfalls, when they went test optional.

They found that colleges facing financial or enrollment-related pressures were less likely to see a significant increase in minority student representation when they went test optional.

"It is important to recognize that college and university environments, like most complex organizations, face multiple competing pressures," Hsu said. "Actions and policies aimed at responding to each of these pressures can, at times, work at cross-purposes with one another."

 
Akil Bello offers a short video taking the College Board to task for claiming that the SAT only tests math concepts from the high school curriculum.

 
A new version of the ACT will debut in September 2025. First Coast News has the details:

[Excerpts]

High school students across the country will face a new version of the ACT this fall — one that experts say could make the testing experience less stressful, but no less important.

“The changes coming to the ACT are essentially in two categories, some minor, some major,” explained Jim Wismer, Director at Ivy Experience and board member of the National Test Prep Association. “The content of the test will be over 90% the same … but now students will have more time per question.”

Among the most noticeable shifts: the math section will shrink from five answer choices to four. The science section becomes optional, scored separately and no longer factored into a student’s composite. And, for the first time, students can choose to take the test on paper or computer.

The base registration fee for the exam is $68, with the optional science section adding just $4. The optional writing section costs $25 more — but Wismer cautions: “I actually don’t recommend taking that optional writing section because most colleges don’t require it.”

For Florida students, the stakes are high. All state universities still require an SAT or ACT score, and the Bright Futures scholarship program accepts the new ACT as well. While some private colleges remain test-optional, Wismer notes that standardized exams carry weight in what he calls a “grade-inflated” era.

“With so many students applying with excellent grades, these tests are really a way for students to stand out academically,” he said.

Families will also get new financial flexibility: thanks to a recent tax change, 529 college savings plans can now cover test registration fees, prep courses, and private tutoring.

 
James S. Murphy takes a look at the new college admissions data that will have to be publicly released due to recent proposed rule changes by the Trump administration.

[Excerpts]

The Trump Administration has published its announcement about proposed changes to the admissions data the Department of Education collects through IPEDS. This announcement answers some of the questions I raised in a previous post about President Trump’s executive order. There’s actually a lot to like here in terms of increased transparency, but the scale and timing are, to use a technical term, nuts. I discuss the proposed changes below, but let’s cover some basics first so we can understand just how radical the scale and timing of these planned changes are.

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Survey (IPEDS) is a survey that every institution of higher education that receives federal financial aid dollars is required to complete every year. It collects a huge amount of data across a broad range of topics. This data is used by institutions, policymakers, researchers, and advocates to understand higher education better and hold it accountable. IPEDS currently has 16 components (e.g., Institutional Characteristics, Financial Aid, Fall Enrollment) that almost 5,000 institutions fill out in three surveys that are completed in the fall, winter, and spring. Completing IPEDS is a very large task, typically handled by an office of institutional research, which has to coordinate with academic departments, administration, financial aid, admissions, and many other programs across a college or university to complete the survey every year.

The Trump Administration wants to create a whole new Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement” (ACTS) survey component for IPEDS in 2025-26, i.e., the academic year that is kicking off now across the country. This component will include a lot of redundant questions that replicate items already in the Admissions component, and it will add many new questions that will increase transparency in college admissions.

It will be a huge amount of work and coordination for admissions, financial aid, and student outcomes offices and even more for the offices of institutional research that are responsible for reporting to IPEDS. Completing the proposed ACTS survey will be a big, but not impossible lift for flagship universities and wealthy private institutions that have larger offices for institutional research. There are, however, many smaller institutions required to fill out the Admissions survey that have institutional research offices run by a single person or that rely on part-time workers and that cannot afford the latest data management systems that make this kind of reporting more efficient. The increased administrative burden on them will be large, particularly at a moment when many institutions are facing financial and staffing challenges.

Did I mention that the Trump Administration also wants the last five years of data for all the questions in this new survey component?

It’s not just the scale of the proposed changes that will increase the burden on universities; it’s the timing. It is not clear which of the three seasonal surveys the administration want to add this new admissions transparency component to, but they are all too soon. The fall survey opens next month and closes in October; the winter survey runs from December to February; spring runs from December to April. Unless the Department of Education creates a new data collection period, the best case-scenario is that colleges and universities will need to prepare and report on six years of data for new survey questions by mid-April.

I want to call out the largest concern with this expanded data admissions collection: it creates significant opportunities for operators to weaponize admissions data against institutions in ways that are likely to create significant pressure to reduce racial and socioeconomic diversity on campus.

Disaggregating so many components by race will inevitably lead to accusations of racial discrimination against institutions, particularly when many of the survey components are ill-defined and other important admissions priorities, such as legacy preferences, athletic recruitment, and relationships with feeder schools, are not going to be included in the data collection. Add to this the fact that there are serious problems with using aggregated data of this kind to determine the role that single factors like race played in admissions decisions and enrollments, even when you’re doing it in good faith.

 
Stanford is not only reinstating its SAT/ACT requirement, but it is bucking a recent trend among many elite colleges by retaining its legacy admissions policies.

[Excerpts]

Stanford will continue considering legacy status while no longer being test-optional for the fall 2026 admissions cycle, according to the University’s newly released admissions criteria.

The move comes after Assembly Bill 1780, which will prohibit universities benefiting from state-funded financial assistance from “providing a legacy preference or donor preference in admissions… to an applicant.”

To comply with the new bill, Stanford will withdraw from the Cal Grant, a state-sponsored fund that supports Californian students in financial need. The University will be “replacing state-funded student financial aid with university funding, keeping our students’ financial support whole,” wrote Brad Howard, associate vice president of University communications, in an email to the Daily.

Regarding legacy admissions, Howard said there are “important issues on which there are many perspectives.” He added that the University will conduct “continued study and analysis” on the issue.

While Stanford will continue considering applicants’ legacy status, the University will no longer be test-optional for the upcoming fall 2026 admissions cycle.

Stanford’s renewed test requirements mean that applicants will have to submit either SAT or ACT scores, although the admissions office clarified that there is “no minimum GPA or test score.”