The College Board will add a science score to the SAT starting in the spring of 2027. This will not be a separate science-related section (as the ACT has recently implemented), but will be derived from science-related questions from the Reading and Writing and Math sections. This change flew under the radar for months, as the document is dated March 2026, but the news only broke in late October. This new score seems to be motivated more by the prospect of new statewide testing contracts (many states have requirements for statewide exams to demonstrate student proficiency in science) rather than generating an additional test score for colleges to consider. This view is supported by having the news regarding the new science section appearing in the "Why Offer the SAT" section of the College Board website aimed at "K-12 Leaders."

[Excerpts from the College Board document:

Understanding the SAT Analysis in Science Score

Ensuring students have mastered science reasoning skills is essential for success in college and careers, particularly for students interested in pursuing opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). What does the Analysis in Science Score mean? The Analysis in Science (AiS) score is based on student performance on select science-related questions from the SAT Reading and Writing and Math sections. With a range of 50–70 and an average score of around 60, the SAT Analysis in Science score reflects how well students demonstrate the science reasoning skills needed for success in science courses. In a recent study, students with a score of 59-62 earned an average 3.1 GPA in their first-semester science, technology, and math college courses.

How Science Is Tested on the SAT

The SAT assesses science skills efficiently by measuring them throughout the Reading and Writing and Math sections as opposed to requiring students to take an additional science section and increasing testing time by 35 to 40 minutes. The Analysis in Science score on the SAT measures critical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as the ability to apply an understanding of aspects of scientific reasoning necessary to achieve success in science courses. Science passages in the SAT Reading and Writing section exhibit key features of scientific texts, including the presentation and discussion of experimental and observational studies, such as hypotheses, methodology, data, findings, and implications. The SAT Math section contains questions set in science contexts and others requiring students to use additional skills commonly called on in science classes.

 
The New York Times reports that “Fighting A.I. Cheating on the SAT is a Cat-and-Mouse Game:

[Excerpts]

Priced at $499 and payable by cryptocurrency only, Auto SAT was marketed as a foolproof way to ace the SAT tests.

It used artificial intelligence to project answers onto a student’s computer screen — during the test.
But as soon as Auto SAT went on sale in March, the College Board, which sponsors the SAT tests, discovered it on social media.

The organization purchased a copy of Auto SAT, evaluated it and then pushed design and code changes to its test to thwart Auto SAT’s effectiveness. It filed a lawsuit against the malware developer and demanded that the website be taken down.

The College Board’s efforts against Auto SAT are among the latest moves in what has become a costly cat-and-mouse game against global cyberintrusions. Cheating operations taking advantage of advances in A.I. technology are forcing the $2 billion nonprofit to step up its defenses.

The SAT tests went online in 2024, a move aimed partly at ending test leaks. But, looking to capitalize on consumer demand for high scores, scammers have devised a medley of tricks to undermine the security of the digital test.

They often combine sophisticated A.I. tools and a pervasive form of cheating involving time zones. Test takers in New Zealand, for example, can log in hours before others around the world, copy questions and then sell them in later time zones.

Students, tutors and others have raised alarms, and the College Board has responded.

To thwart “time zone cheating,” the College Board is planning to put in place a new SAT testing schedule sometime in 2027, according to Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the organization. The new schedule has not yet been announced, but it will eliminate the hours-long gap between tests given in different time zones, reducing the possibility of time zone cheating.

A similar plan was announced by the College Board in July for the organization’s Advanced Placement tests.

And in other security moves, the College Board has banned wearable A.I. smart glasses and started tracking keystrokes and cursor movements in some locations.

The security efforts come after students and others have sent complaints to the College Board about SAT test security, in emails obtained by The New York Times. They pointed to SAT test questions that have appeared on social media, most recently during the October international test. (The test is administered exclusively in English worldwide.)

In March, a group of SAT test prep tutors and recent test-takers in Uzbekistan emailed the College Board to report “documented leaks across multiple international administrations,” specifically complaining about test items available on the web platform Telegram five hours before the test started in Central Asia.

In an Oct. 12 email to the College Board, shared with The Times, a tutor who asked to be anonymous to protect his school and students wrote that a leaked test circulated on social media in Europe at 1:30 a.m. the day of the test — hours before students in Europe would take it.

Camille Thompson, vice president of test security for the College Board, said that despite occasional problems, the organization remained confident that the digital SAT test was generally secure.

The digital SAT test is an adaptive exam, meaning that students are asked different questions depending on how well they answer the early questions. The variations minimize the potential for cheating. While the College Board will not disclose the exact number of possible variations of the test, the nonprofit says that tests vary considerably from “region to region around the globe, but also from computer to computer.”

Ms. Thompson said that the percentage of high scores remained the same, another indication that the test was still secure.

“We haven’t seen a significant drift in test takers who are receiving scores at the upper end of the scoring system,” she said in an interview.

October versions of the test, which some tutors said contained authentic questions, appeared on a website called bluebooky.com. The website had more than 500,000 page views in August and collects fees from users. Its name is a knockoff of the College Board’s official test app, Bluebook.

Auto SAT, the app identified by the College Board in March, used malware to bypass the lockdown screen on the SAT exam site, according to the College Board’s lawsuit.

The malware could then access SAT test questions in real time and send them to an A.I. chatbot, which displayed the answers on a student’s computer during test administration. A small dot would appear on a student’s screen to indicate the correct answer to multiple choice questions. The bot also provided answers to free response questions.

 
EdSource examines the pending decision at the University of California regarding a potential reinstatement of SAT/ACT scores.

[Excerpts]

The University of California is facing a pivotal moment in its high-profile deliberation over whether to reinstate the SAT and ACT admissions requirement in response to students’ declining math preparedness.
UC’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) on Friday will review reports that more deeply explore the spike in the number of students failing introductory math courses at the prestigious public university system.

Meanwhile, UC campuses and math departments are searching for their own answers to help students catch up in math. They are redesigning courses, expanding counseling services and encouraging students to take summer classes if they are underprepared, especially if they did not take precalculus in high school.

Some campuses are also reconsidering whether students in certain science programs need to take calculus. UCLA, for example, has found success with a first-year math course tailored to students in biology programs.

The reports to the admissions board could chart how UC responds to calls for reinstating high-stakes testing for freshman admissions.

One report will provide more information on enrollment patterns and performance in introductory math classes, such as calculus and precalculus. UC recently revealed that, last school year, 18% of students in those classes failed or struggled greatly. (That figure doesn’t account for students who started in a higher math class or didn’t take math at all.)

BOARS will also review a report on how student outcomes, such as grades and graduation rates, have changed since UC eliminated standardized testing in 2020.

The admissions board is expected to make a recommendation by February on whether to bring back the SAT and ACT for first-year admissions. The UC Board of Regents will make the final decision, likely in the summer.

“The numbers aren’t where we want them. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the end of the story,” Pamela Brown, UC’s vice president for institutional research and academic planning, said of the failure rates in math courses.

A UC Berkeley alumnus, she recalled herself having trouble in math as an undergraduate before earning her bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics. “You can struggle in math, and you can still succeed at the university,” she said.

Joel Hass, chair of the math department at UC Davis, acknowledged that more students are leaving high school unprepared for college math. Still, he said he supports reinstating the SAT and ACT, at least for certain math and science programs that require advanced math classes.

“It sends a signal not just to the campus, but also to the student, that maybe they aren’t prepared as they might think they are, and maybe they need to work hard to prepare for university coursework,” Hass said.

Thomas Aquinas College and Johns Hopkins have partnered to study how the SAT has changed in recent decades.

[Excerpts]

Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Education Policy released a new study — sponsored by Thomas Aquinas College — that compares earlier versions of the SAT with the test as currently administered. “The College Board’s conception of college-ready reading,” JHU’s researchers conclude, “has changed.”

And not for the better, according to TAC Vice President and Dean Emeritus John J. Goyette.

“The makers of the SAT seem to believe that the ability to tackle long and complex literary works isn’t an important skill for college students anymore,” says Dr. Goyette. “Sadly, given the state of modern higher education, they’re probably right.”

The TAC-sponsored report — The SAT Reading Section: A Comparative Analysis of the 1980, 1987, and 2026 Practice Tests — compares SAT forms from 1980 and 1987 with a current College Board practice test. The authors document extensive modifications to the SAT reading section over the past four decades, most of which diminish the emphasis on students’ ability to read and analyze difficult texts. These include:

---Shorter passages, less than a third of their former length
---A sharp drop in the number of vocabulary questions requiring independent word knowledge, from 60 per test to 10
---The near elimination of argumentative and persuasive readings from the test, replaced by expository texts
---Replacing reading passages that assumed prior knowledge and understanding on the part of the reader with texts that reveal their meanings through contextual clues

“This shift is significant because reading, vocabulary, and comprehension are mutually reinforcing,” the study’s authors observe. “As students read more, both the breadth (number of words known) and the depth (quality of word understanding) of their vocabulary increase, which in turn supports stronger reading comprehension.”

For more than 50 years, Thomas Aquinas College has relied on the SAT to evaluate the aptitude and preparedness of its applicants. Yet since the 1980s, the College Board’s exam has undergone multiple transformations, leading College officials to question whether it still measures the same qualifications as in past decades — and whether prospective students’ test scores can be fairly compared across time

“We wanted to get a sense of the long-term value of the SAT as an admissions tool,” says Dr. Goyette. “We also wanted to see what its changes can tell us about recent trends in American higher education. To our surprise, no one had conducted a careful, independent comparison of what the test asked of students then and now. So, we commissioned this study.”

The results were not promising for schools such as Thomas Aquinas College, which employs a curriculum drawn entirely from the greatest works of the Western intellectual tradition — texts that are long, arduous, sometimes convoluted, and demand a strong vocabulary and ability to reason. “Since few colleges still ask students to read the great works, it is not surprising that the test has moved in the same direction,” says Dr. Goyette.

The study’s authors are careful to describe changes to the SAT over the last 46 years as a “redistribution rather than simple reduction” of demands, and they draw no conclusions about the various versions’ relative difficulty.

“This report is a content analysis. It tells us only what the test asks,” adds Dr. Goyette. “It does not, and was not designed to, tell us whether the test has become more or less difficult for students. Four of its five findings suggest that the newer SAT demands less of the test-taker, but the fifth, text complexity, suggests the opposite. We’ll let further research resolve that question. What these findings do confirm is that the SAT has changed in fundamental ways. What it now measures is different from what it measured in the past. And that’s likely because what most colleges teach — or fail to teach — has also changed.”