A Make or Break Moment for the ACT?

If you've had reason to be even loosely acquainted with the standardized testing world over the last year, you're probably aware that ACT, Inc. is in the midst of a pretty big change.

The September test date will mark the first time all weekend testers sit for what the ACT is touting as their new "enhanced" ACT, which introduces several key modifications to the legacy version of the exam.

What's Actually Changing?

Here's what's different: The enhanced ACT has fewer questions in three of four sections, more time per question across the board, and makes the science section optional. Even if you do choose to take the science section, it won't count toward your composite score. The test is also shorter—by about an hour if you skip the science section entirely.

The ACT's changes, like the SAT's right before them, were manifestly designed to make the tests more attractive to students—which has become especially important for the test makers as more schools went test optional and students no longer needed to take these tests (in most cases). But as both test makers quickly discovered, overhauling a high-stakes standardized test is easier said than done.

How the SAT Survived Its Rocky Transition

When College Board rolled out the digital SAT, to international testers in 2023 and US testers in 2024, it wasn't without serious bumps. Some students were shocked by the difficulty of the first test and criticized the official practice materials as misleading. During the March 2025 test administration, a major software bug caused a large number of tests to "auto-submit" before they were actually complete, making national news and prompting at least one class action lawsuit (!).

And yet despite all of this deserved criticism, College Board has emerged relatively unscathed (all press is good press?). The number of SAT testers grew in 2024, and while we don't have national data from 2025 yet, interest remains strong among the families we work with.

The ACT's Struggles Are Different

The rollout of the new enhanced ACT has faced similar bumps—criticisms about the lack of practice materials, poor communication from ACT, Inc., and the perceived lack of rigorous validity testing. There's also been confusion about changes in the scoring system and how that would affect the classes of 2026 and 2027, many of whom were going to take both versions of the test.

But whereas the SAT seems to have weathered the their storm, it's not clear (from my vantage point at least) that the ACT has done the same. The conventional wisdom seems to be that the ACT is in trouble—in conversations with people who are not generally well-acquainted with standardized tests, a number have told me unprompted that the rollout is going "really badly." And it's a tiny sample size, but our data backs this up: At Franklin Yard, our students taking the ACT dropped from 39% in August 2024 to just 27% in August 2025.

(Perhaps related: Kentucky recently switched from ACT to SAT for state testing. Maybe just a side effect of political wrangling, but a bad look at the present moment.)

Maybe I'm imagining it, but you can even see some desperation in the ACT’s marketing. There's some insecure copy they keep running on their website: "the #1 test in nearly half of US states" (emphasis mine). And they also added student testimonials attesting to just how AWESOME the new enhanced test is. They also started running little discounts on, for instance, test registration costs, with e-commerce style marketing tactics. It's all a little try hard.

I don't want to speculate too much about whether the ACT is being treated unfairly compared to the SAT (who, again, had their own host of issues). I'm merely putting this forward as the observation of one test prep tutor. But it's hard to argue, I think, that the perception of the test hasn't been hurt as a result of the overhaul.

Why You Shouldn’t Write it Off

Let me be clear: we at Franklin Yard have been on the record, repeatedly, about our criticisms of the enhanced test’s rollout.

However, I do think the conventional wisdom has swung perhaps too far toward "SAT good, ACT bad." Students who would actually do better on the ACT might be ruling it out entirely when they shouldn't.

The reality is that different students perform better on different tests. The SAT isn't automatically better for everyone—it has harder reading passages and requires more unorthodox math thinking. So my concern is that people are writing off the ACT entirely based on perception rather than fit. If you're starting this process, my advice remains the same as always: try both tests and see where you perform better.

The Make or Break Moment

So where does this leave us? Honestly, I don't know what the future holds for the ACT.

Will they turn this around? Will students embrace the enhanced format once the dust settles? It's possible (it does have the advantage of being the only paper option). But it's also entirely possible that the ACT mismanages their way into permanent minority status—or worse.

And that would be a loss for families. If we're going to have standardized testing, competition is better than monopoly. I wouldn't welcome a world where the SAT is the only game in town, able to do whatever they want without pressure from a substantial competitor.

So I'm rooting for the ACT to find its footing, its faults.

The next few months will be telling.