What Happened with the March 8–9 Weekend SAT and What College Board Is Doing About It

During the March 8–9 weekend administration of the SAT^®, some students' tests were automatically submitted before their testing time was complete due to an incorrectly configured security setting on Bluebook^™, College Board’s digital student testing app. The issue has been fixed, and we’re taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future. 

More than 268,000 students participated in the March administration of the SAT. During the administration, 12.8% (8,855) of international and 0.6% (1,231) of domestic test takers were impacted by the auto-submit error. Additionally, several thousand students in the Americas may have lost some testing time if they were asked by their room monitor to reboot their devices during the test to fix and prevent the auto-submit error.  

We deeply and sincerely apologize to the students who were not able to complete their tests, or had their test time interrupted, for the difficulty and frustration this has caused them and their families.

Here’s what we’re doing to support students:

• All students whose tests were automatically submitted will receive a refund of their March 8 registration fees and a voucher for a future SAT administration free of cost. Additionally, students can decide whether to keep their scores from the March 8 administration or cancel them and take a makeup on March 22, if one is available in their area. 
   
• To help them make an informed decision about their scores, affected students whose tests automatically submitted will receive a preview of their scores on March 14 that they can use to decide whether they want to keep those scores or take a make-up exam on March 22 if one is available. 
   
• While mistiming issues within individual testing rooms occasionally occur during an SAT administration, we recognize that this issue was disruptive to the students who lost exam time because they were instructed in their room to reboot Bluebook mid-test. We will work with them through irregularity reports submitted by their test centers and student-reported issues. As with all such incidents, students will get a makeup opportunity if available in their area, and in this case, students will also be offered a refund and voucher. 
  
  Students who believe they were impacted in this way may contact Customer Service at sat.org/inquiry or 866-756-7346, or +1-212-713-7789 (international). Customer Service hours are 8 a.m.–8 p.m. ET, Monday–Friday.

Finally, we won’t send students’ scores from the March 8 test to colleges unless/until students direct us to. When these students receive their official score reports, they can contact College Board to have the scores released to their selected colleges should they want to do so.

We are communicating with the higher education institutions and scholarship organizations where students have requested to send their scores from the March 8 exam so they understand the issue and hold students harmless. We are highly confident that our members will provide flexibility around any deadlines, as they have in the past. We will work individually with any college, university, or scholarship organization to support students.

Again, we deeply regret the frustration and inconvenience this issue caused and are committed to ensuring a successful testing experience for the millions of students we serve.