On June 23, 1926, more than 8,000 high school students sat down to take the first version of what was then called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or the SAT. The teens spent roughly an hour and a half attempting to answer 315 questions about word definitions, analogies, math and more in the hopes that their score would help them gain admission to top colleges. In just a few years, Harvard even began to use the test to find talented students beyond those at prestigious boarding schools on the East Coast.
Now, a century later, around two million graduating high school students in the United States—more than half—take the SAT each year. The test has morphed several times over its history, as researchers, educators and the public have pushed for it to assess skills learned in school rather than inherent intelligence or rote memorization.
But higher education has been inching away from entrance exams. Less than 10 percent of U.S. institutions that grant bachelor’s degrees require a score from the SAT, or its fellow ACT test, for the fall 2026 admissions cycle. That’s largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic’s lingering effects. However, decades-long arguments over what the test scores truly reflect and whether they’re accurate predictors of college success have made people question their role in admissions.
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