Average SAT scores rose for the second straight year, according to the College Board’s annual report released this week, though they remain below pre-pandemic levels. But the gains came as fewer students took the test. The class of 2026 was the first since the pandemic to see SAT participation decline.
These two trends are connected. Much of the drop came from Illinois, which stopped giving the SAT to all juniors and switched to the ACT. Students who take the SAT on a school day score lower on average than those who sign up for a weekend test, according to the report.
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Looking at the numbers
Nationally, the average SAT score rose 16 points, from 1029 for the class of 2025 to 1045 for the class of 2026, according to the report. Participation moved the other way, with more than 2 million students in the class of 2025 taking the test, compared with about 1.95 million this year — a drop of about 50,000 test-takers nationwide.
Illinois alone lost about 122,000 test-takers, falling from 142,400 to 20,254. The College Board attributed the national decline largely to Illinois’ switch. Excluding that state, the rest of the country gained roughly 72,000 test-takers, and participation grew in 42 states and Washington, D.C., according to the College Board.
Illinois also explains a large share of the score increase, though not all of it. A Straight Arrow analysis of College Board data found that, excluding Illinois from both years, the national average would have risen by roughly 9 points instead of 16.
The Illinois switch
For most of the past decade, Illinois required public high school juniors to take the SAT. But in 2024, the state awarded ACT a six-year, $53 million contract to use its test instead.
State officials said the two bids scored nearly even on technical quality and commitment to diversity, which made up 75% of the evaluation. Price comprised the rest, and ACT came out ahead overall. The switch also let the state drop a separate science test for juniors, since the ACT includes a science section.
Juniors in spring 2025, the class of 2026, were the first to take the ACT instead of the SAT. Individual districts can still offer the SAT, and students can take it on their own, but it’s no longer free for every junior in the state.
Weekend testing grows
The College Board’s report also found that more students chose to take the SAT on their own. The number who tested only on a weekend, outside of school, rose more than 7% to 692,135.
Part of that growth may reflect selective colleges reinstating testing requirements, and international participation rose 13.%, according to the College Board. But Illinois appears to be a factor, too.
Students there who still wanted SAT scores had to register and pay on their own, and the state’s weekend-only test-takers jumped from 2,418 to 15,548. That increase alone accounts for roughly a quarter of the national growth.
Why it matters
School-day testing nearly doubled over the past several years, from about 750,000 students in the class of 2018 to 1.36 million in the class of 2025. The state contracts behind it are big business. The College Board earned about $289 million from its SAT suite of tests in 2022, more than a quarter of its revenue, according to an analysis of its tax filings by the think tank New America.
Those contracts also shape the national average. Students who took the SAT only on a school day averaged 909 this year, compared with 1179 for students who took it only on a weekend. When a state stops giving the test to every junior, the national average can rise without any change in what students know.
Illinois isn’t the only state to switch. Kentucky went the other direction last year, dropping the ACT for the SAT beginning with juniors in spring 2026, a move the state estimated could save up to $350,000 a year. Those students should show up in next year’s report.
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