Kaisar Alam, Ph.D.

After the many COVID cancellations in 2020, disruptions to the tests have been minimal in recent months. SAT is offered 7 times a year (March, May, June, August, October, November, and December). SAT is generally offered on Saturdays, but if you cannot take the test on a Saturday for a religious reason, Sunday alternate dates are also available. Some school day tests are also given, and your school will generally notify you about them.

The table below provides SAT test dates, normal registration deadlines, late registration deadlines, and score release dates for the 2021-22. The tests dates are primarily late Spring and in the Fall. This allows juniors to take the test before the summer. The seniors also get multiple chances to hit their score target.

* For mail registration, late registration deadline is about 1 week earlier.

Registering for the SAT

Begin by signing into your College Board account and going to the registration link is: registration link. The SAT costs $52.00. If you don’t know which test center is best for you, you can find the closest centers here. SAT scores are released in approximately 2 weeks, except for the June administration.

Are top SAT scores still helpful? Yes!

Many colleges have adopted test-optional policies in response to COVID-19, at least temporarily. However, college admission tests still play an important role even for test optional colleges. If you receive a good score for the college (top 25% for the college) or a 99^th percentile SAT score, my personal advice will be to submit it and give yourself an advantage in admission test scores.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, test optional policies might make it more difficult to get admitted to top schools. The class of 2023 (2019 freshman class) was the first test-optional class for University of Chicago, but their admission rate dropped 1.3% (7.2% to 5.9%). Even more interesting, the average test score increased 15 points!

Many colleges including Yale and Princeton have announced that standardized testing remains optional for 2021-22 admissions cycle and have indicated indirectly that they intend to resume testing requirements for 2022-23 admissions cycle.

Despite the test-optional policies, 1.5 million students still took the SAT in 2020. Clearly, most applicants are still submitting test scores to test optional schools. You can submit a great score to enhance your application!

SAT Test Prep

It’s never too early to start preparing for the SAT. If you need help with your test preparation, please check out our blog and YouTube channel. Prep Excellence offers several industry-leading test prep courses and top SAT tutoring that you can take advantage of.

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