Dive Brief:
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Five years after COVID-19 shut down classrooms and shifted college admissions testing policies, the SAT and ACT are still drawing fewer students than during pre-pandemic years.
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Some 1.38 million students took the ACT in 2025 compared to 1.78 million in 2019, and about 2 million students took the SAT this year versus 2.22 million in 2019, data released recently by the testing companies show.
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SAT scores, meanwhile, increased only slightly from the high school class of 2024 to the class of 2025, while ACT scores stayed about level. In both cases, scores fell below those from the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Dive Insight:
The slight uptick in SAT scores and level ACT scores for the high school graduating class of 2025 are still positive trends compared to last year, when average scores on both tests declined year-over-year compared to 2023.
Still, SAT scores were still “substantially lower than average scores prior to the pandemic," said College Board, the organization that publishes the test. In 2025, average SAT scores were 521 in reading and writing and 508 in math. In 2019, those averages were 10 points higher for reading and writing (531) and 20 points higher for math (528).
The ACT average composite score, 19.4, also fell lower than the 2019 score of 20.7.
For ACT test-takers, 30% met three or more of the four college readiness benchmarks in English, math, reading and science. The ACT benchmarks indicate that students have a 50% chance of earning a B or better in first-year college courses of the same subject and a 75% chance of a C or better.
Meanwhile, the dip in overall test takers for both exams continues a trend that dates to at least the pandemic, when colleges shifted toward test-optional policies. For the ACT, however, the numbers began declining much earlier.
While testing experts had expected the pandemic to trigger a shift away from K-12 standardized tests, that didn't materialize to a great degree and standardized and high-stakes testing are still core to K-12.
More than 90% of four-year colleges in the U.S. were not expected to require applicants for fall 2026 admission to submit ACT or SAT scores, according to data released in September by FairTest, a nonprofit that advocates for limiting college entrance exams. That's over 2,000 of the nation's bachelor-degree granting institutions.
Since fall 2020, the number of test-optional or test-free colleges have increased overall, the organization's annual count shows.
In the meantime, FairTest said the number of institutions requiring entrance exams minimally increased — from 154 for fall 2025 admissions to 160 for fall 2026 admissions.
“While a handful of schools have reinstated testing requirements over the past two admissions cycles for a variety of institutional reasons and in response to external pressures, ACT/SAT-optional and test-blind/score-free policies remain the normal baseline in undergraduate admissions,” said FairTest Executive Director Harry Feder in a September statement. “Test-optional policies continue to dominate at national universities, state flagships, and selective liberal arts colleges.”
