When Should You Start SAT/ACT Prep? Earlier Than It Feels Necessary

If you are in 10th grade, testing probably does not feel urgent yet, and that is exactly why many students push it off. There is always a reason to wait—classes feel more immediate, activities feel more important, and college itself still seems far enough away that testing can be dealt with later. If anything, you might be telling yourself that you will “figure it out” once things settle down.

The problem is that “later” rarely arrives on its own.

By the time students reach junior year, testing is no longer a standalone task. It lands in the middle of everything else that is already becoming more serious. Coursework gets heavier, leadership roles become more demanding, and summer planning starts to matter more. Students who are aiming for highly selective schools are not only trying to keep up academically; they are also beginning to think much more intentionally about how their profile is taking shape, and that is usually the point where testing starts to feel less like a simple requirement and more like one more pressure point. Many students do not really feel this until the calendar fills up all at once—an AP-heavy schedule, a demanding activity they care about, and the realization that testing is no longer something abstract in the future, but something they now have to fit in.

That is what makes timing matter. The issue is not whether a student can prepare in junior year—of course they can. The issue is what testing begins to compete with once they do, and how much room they actually have left to approach it well.

This has become more important, not less, because the admissions landscape is tightening again around testing. Yale University now requires applicants to submit ACT, SAT, AP, or IB scores under its test-flexible policy, while Harvard University has returned to requiring the SAT or ACT with limited alternatives. Dartmouth College has reactivated its testing requirement, Brown University has done the same beginning with the 2024–25 cycle, and schools like University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University have also moved back toward requiring standardized testing for current or upcoming cycles. In other words, for students applying to many of the most selective schools, testing is no longer something you can assume will stay optional.

That does not mean every student needs to begin formal prep immediately. What it does mean is that students benefit from getting clarity earlier than they think they need it. A diagnostic taken in the spring of sophomore year does not create pressure; it usually removes it. It answers the questions that would otherwise sit in the background for months—Which test is the better fit? How far is the current score from a realistic target range? How much time would meaningful improvement actually take?

Once those questions are answered, everything else becomes easier to sequence. Preparation can be spaced out and integrated into your schedule instead of competing with it. You can test once, assess the result, and still have time to improve without feeling cornered by the calendar, which is where many students start to feel the process slipping out of their control.

That is the real advantage of starting earlier. It is not about intensity; it is about control.

And that distinction matters more than most students realize. At the most selective level, admissions rarely rewards a last-minute scramble. As our founder and CEO, Adam Nguyen, has put it, these metrics usually function as a baseline in elite admissions rather than a magic differentiator. That makes timing even more important: if testing is one of the few parts of your application that can be directly compared across students, while most other components are evaluated in context and are inherently more subjective, you want enough runway to handle it well—not simply get through it, especially when you are competing for a limited number of spots alongside other high-achieving students at Ivy-level and similarly selective institutions.

So the better question is not, “What grade should I start prep?” The better question is, “When do I still have room in my schedule to approach this calmly, before everything else crowds in?” For most strong students, that answer comes earlier than expected.

At Ivy Link, our standardized testing program is led by Cory Bragar, who has spent over two decades guiding students through the SAT and ACT. What we’ve seen consistently is that students who start with clarity—not urgency—tend to navigate the process more effectively and with far less stress.

If you are starting to think about how testing might fit into your timeline, we are hosting a focused session for families to walk through exactly that.

Workshop for Parents & Students: Navigating Standardized Testing in 2026
We will cover how testing is currently being evaluated in admissions, how to think about SAT vs ACT, when to begin, and what preparation should realistically look like.

You can view the available dates and register here:
https://www.myivylink.com/workshops