Juniors’ Overcame the SAT Jitters: State Changes Required College Exam for all Students

On March 18, 2026, Great Crossing High School’s junior class took the SAT for the first time in school history. Previously, the mandated test for every junior to take was the ACT, but for the 2025-2026 school year, the switch to the SAT was made by the Kentucky Department of Education. With the change in the test comes a change in how both students and staff felt about test day.

Melissa Keenan is the building assessment coordinator (BAC) for GCHS.  As the BAC, she is responsible for scheduling and organizing all of the standardized tests given throughout the school year.  Keenan prepared for the administration of the school wide SAT for months prior to the test. 

There are a few differences in the format of the SAT from the ACT. Kennan stated, “The SAT is an adaptive test in a two module setting: Reading/Writing and Math. With the ACT there were multiple sections: Reading, Math, Science, English.  Because the SAT incorporates all of those four subjects within the two modules, the test is shorter.”  

The SAT is new to everyone in the building, teachers included. To help the students and teachers prepare for the SAT Keenan explained, “We have been preparing for the SAT since September by running the Juniors through a practice platform. Hours of meetings and trainings by The College Board have also prepared the staff to understand how the program works.” 

For several years, math teacher Michael James has provided after school tutoring for the math part of the ACT. This year, he had to adjust the content of these after school bootcamps. After studying both tests, James noticed, “The content on the SAT is much more skewed towards algebra content, while the ACT is geometry heavy. I had to teach a lot more algebra than geometry.”

While GCHS offered after school sessions to help juniors prepare for the ACT, all on campus students received some preparation during the day as well.  James stated, “We have been going into junior seminars and teaching math content and test taking tricks and strategies to give juniors the best opportunity to perform well on the SAT.”

Junior Connor Blair saw taking the SAT seriously as part of the process for his post-high school plans. Blair explained, “It means good scholarships and a brighter future.” Due to this Blair took the initiative to take practice tests on different websites in hopes to learn the best techniques to tackle the test.

With the completion of the test, juniors are anticipating their scores which they expect to  receive in April. These students will make decisions about possibly retaking the test, taking the ACT in addition to this SAT, and administrators will review the results and discuss plans to help students improve overall.