Should your student take the SAT or ACT—and is test prep worth the time and investment? With more colleges returning to test-required admissions while many remain test optional, the decision can be confusing. Learn when students should test, how to choose between the SAT and ACT, when to start preparing, and how a strong score can strengthen a college application.

First Dartmouth, now Yale? What does “test flexible” mean? This post will help you decide whether or not to test prep in 2026. Remember to check the score ranges as well as what % of applicants submit scores using each school’s Common Data Set. another factor is which major you’re selecting: some majors in each school require test scores for automatic (or direct) admission including popular programs like the Kelley business school at Indiana University.

What’s a good PSAT Score? What are the PSAT Score Ranges? Does the PSAT predict how well I will do on the SAT? Is the scoring scale the same between the PSAT and SAT exams? How does the PSAT help me become a National Merit Scholar (NMS) Finalist or Semi-Finalist? The PSAT is offered to juniors as part of the National Merit Scholar (NMS) search process.

While under-resourced students tend to undermatch– applying to less selective colleges and fewer of them than they could likely gain admission to– well-resourced kids often overmatch, applying to colleges more selective than the ones they are necessarily qualified for and to too many of them. I can’t count the number of times my under-resourced students plan to apply to only one or two colleges (the national average in 2021-2022 was approximately six colleges) when they should be aiming higher and more broadly.

Learn about upcoming changes to the ACT college admissions exam.

Of the 1.6 million juniors who sat for the PSAT in October 2023, only about 15,000 will go on to be named national merit scholars. How does the PSAT help me become a National Merit Scholar Finalist or Semi-Finalist? What scores are required to become a state finalist or a national scholar?