Fall SAT Registration Update: Tonight’s the Night (Probably)

UPDATE: College Board Releases Additional Information About Registration Process for Fall Tests (5/29/20)

In a blog post on their website, College Board expanded on their tweet from yesterday concerning the registration process for the remaining 2020 SAT test dates. You can read the full post here, but we wanted to provide a short and sweet summary for those of you with too many things to do and not enough time. See below for the key takeaways.

1) Students who fall into the “priority registration” category can register for all remaining 2020 test administrations starting yesterday, 5/28. Students who qualify for this category include:

  • those in the class of 2020 or 2021 who don’t yet have SAT scores
  • anyone who registered for the June SAT or SAT Subject Test and didn’t cancel their registration

2) All other students can register for the November and December SAT and Subject Test administrations starting yesterday, 5/28. According to CB’s statement, registration for the August, September, and October administrations will open to these students roughly a week after it opened for priority students, so “at approximately 8 p.m. ET on June 3”.

3) Test center capacity is more of a concern than usual. As has been addressed in a previous post, this really shouldn’t surprise anyone. College Board states that they are “doing all [they] can to add more test centers and more seats”, so if you go to register and don’t see any open seats near you, don’t give up. The system is continually being updated, typically “by 12 p.m. ET on Tuesdays and Thursdays”, so keep trying. CB has also committed to continuing to send email notifications directly to students and families when additional test centers or seats are added, and to their credit, they’ve been quite communicative overall since the onset of the pandemic.

4) Subject tests aren’t dead yet! Despite some uncertainty about when, if at all, subject tests would be offered again, College Board’s statement makes a point of mentioning them specifically. It remains to be seen how much demand there will be for them given that many students’ testing timelines have been pushed back several months and the general SAT will naturally take priority for those students, but fear not – if you were dying to sit in a room and do German With Listening for an hour, your dream is still alive and well.

That’s what we’ve got for you today. Watch this space for more updates, and as always, stay safe and stay healthy.

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ORIGINAL POST (5/28/20)

College Board released a short statement this week via Twitter providing a couple of additional details about the registration process for the fall SAT test dates. The full release is as follows:

Fall SAT registration will open the evening (Eastern Time) of Thursday, May 28. Students without an SAT score will have access to the August, September, and October SAT administrations before those test dates become available to all other students. We’ll share more details soon.

And… that’s it. No additional details have been shared since that post. College Board has previously indicated that students who were registered for the canceled June 6 test date would also receive priority registration for the fall tests, but there is obviously no mention of that in the above tweet; it remains to be seen whether that was simply an omission (280 characters isn’t that many when you have as much wisdom to impart as CB does, y’all) or a presage of a policy shift.

As we’ve stated in the past, students should continue to monitor their inboxes closely, as it’s likely that, in addition to making any large-scale announcements, College Board will reach out directly to students who meet the criteria for priority registration.

Check back often, as we’ll continue to do our best to keep you apprised of any updates. And most importantly, stay safe out there.

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