Earlier this month, Illinois reported that the ACT exam is no longer required for their public high schoolers to take to get into college. Instead, college-bound students must take the SAT along with a new college entrance exam.

Similarly, this year at Lake Central, juniors are only scheduled to take the SAT in April instead of the previous years when juniors had to take the ACT exam every spring. This new transition has shaken up the students since there was essentially no warning for this change, and students are worried about their futures.

“Most colleges are taking scores from one or the other and I’ve seen more of them taking ACT [scores] over SAT [scores],” Kylie Fehrman (11) said.

On Thurs, Feb. 11, the Illinois State Board of Education announced that they will be negotiating with College Board to administer the SAT exam to all public high schools. Because of this, the SAT exam will be given to all junior students free of charge in school instead of the ACT.

“I think it’s cool that the school offers us the opportunity to take a test for free that can help us get into college. In the end, it’s worth the stress it causes,” Jenna Buntin (11) said.

For the past 15 years, high school juniors were given the ACT exam in school, however, that contract ended on June 30. Spokesperson for ACT, Ed Colby, said they will continue letting juniors take their exam outside of school and will “investigate” their options for administering their exam in public schools.