ACT Changes in 2026: What the New Roadmap Means for Your Student
The biggest ACT changes in 2026 aren't a secret. At the National Test Prep Association's annual conference on June 15 and 16, 2026, ACT's product team walked a room full of test-prep educators through a roadmap that touches almost every part of the testing experience: free practice material, a redesigned score report, section-by-section retesting, and even at-home proctoring. Some of it ships this fall. Some of it is still a sketch on a whiteboard.
For families in the middle of a testing plan, separating the signal from the noise is the problem. A roadmap is not a release. The useful question is narrower: which of these changes will actually affect a student sitting for the ACT in the next 12 months, and which are years away? Here's how we’ll sort it for you.
What's actually shipping in 2026
Three pieces are real, dated, and locked in.
More free practice tests. The ACT is releasing three brand-new full-length practice forms by the end of this calendar year. Two are expected in mid-to-late August, with a third following in the fall. The meaningful detail is how they'll be packaged: the digital format, PDF format, and scoring keys are all supposed to drop at the same time, instead of in a staggered release that families have dealt with for the past few years. For a student studying over the summer, the new package is a clear upgrade. Realistic, full-length practice under accurate conditions is the single highest-value prep activity there is, and the supply of official material has been thin.
Video walkthroughs. The ACT has launched a tutor video series on its YouTube channel and social accounts, featuring working test-prep educators solving real questions one at a time. This is a free resource aimed squarely at students who can't afford private tutoring. It's a smart equity enhancement, so bookmark it, but set expectations accordingly. But a library of single-question explainer videos is a supplement, not a strategy. It can show a student how to work a problem. It can't diagnose why that student keeps running out of time on the reading section.
A math item bank. The ACT is building a dedicated bank of practice questions, starting with math, because that's where students report struggling most. The current plan is to deliver it through an app rather than the website. This is moving along slowly and the feature set isn't in its final form, so treat it as a 2027 conversation rather than a summer-2026 tool.
If your student is testing this year, the practice forms are the headline. The rest is nice to have.
The score report problem the ACT finally admitted
The most candid moment in the ACT's presentation had nothing to do with new features. It was about a product that families already use and quietly resent: the score report and answer key inside MyACT, the ACT's online student dashboard.
Tutors in the room described the same frustration I hear from parents. A student finishes a digital practice test, gets a report listing their answers against the correct ones, and cannot make sense of it. There are no question numbers. Correct and incorrect answers are marked with small carets instead of anything intuitive. And because the report mixes in field test questions (unscored items the ACT is trialing for future exams), students can't even reliably tell how many questions truly counted without manually cross-referencing an answer key.
One tutor put it bluntly: a student will report scoring "35 out of 45" and have no idea what that number actually means.
The ACT acknowledged this is its most common piece of usability feedback and said a redesign is in progress. Good. But "in progress" with no ship date means the tool your student uses today is the tool they'll use this fall.
This is precisely the gap a tutor who knows the test can close. Score data is only useful if it tells you what to do next, and right now the ACT's own report doesn't. Translating a messy answer key into a specific study plan, knowing which question types to drill and which sections to pace differently, and whether to retest at all, form - that’s the core of what good ACT preparation delivers. A raw score printout never will.
The big ideas that aren't real yet
Two announcements that generated the most excitement in the room require the most caution from families.
Section retesting is back on the table. The idea: let a student sit for one or two sections of the ACT on a given test date instead of the whole exam, so a student who's happy with everything except math could retake just math. The ACT described this as being in "discovery." It's talking to college admissions officers about whether or not they'd accept such a score as valid, about working through the operational logistics, and figuring out the price. None of those questions have been answered. Until colleges signal they'll honor section retests, this changes nothing about how your student should prepare.
Remote proctoring is the other one: the possibility of taking the ACT securely from home. If it happens, it would expand how often students can test. Limited seating has been a persistent constraint. But "exploring a possibility" is the operative phrase. Don't build a sophomore-year plan around a feature that doesn't yet exist.
I'd add a note for families navigating learning differences or testing accommodations. Both of these ideas, if they ship, could reshape the logistics of test day in ways that matter enormously for students who need extended time or a low-distraction environment. That's a reason to watch the news about them closely, not a reason to wait for actual implementation.
One more item belongs in the "in progress, no date" column: a new ACT-SAT concordance table, the official chart that translates an ACT score into its SAT equivalent. The ACT and College Board have agreed to build an updated version and the work has started, with the College Board referencing 2027 as a target. For families weighing which test to submit, that conversion math matters, but it isn't changing for this year’s testing cycle.
What the ACT just told you to stop worrying about
In speaking about the new features, the ACT used the session to shut down two persistent anxieties, the resolving of which are worth more to most families than the roadmap.
Paper testing is not going away. Despite a heavy industry shift toward digital, especially in school-day testing, ACT's leadership said plainly that the paper test stays. If your student tests better on paper, that option remains.
And the science section is not disappearing either. The ACT made science optional in its enhanced format, and a lot of families read "optional" as "going away." It isn't. The ACT shared that 22 of its 24 state testing contracts still require a science assessment, and that science participation is running around 80% overall and above 50% even when students freely choose. The leadership's own advice for any student planning to test more than once: take science at least once so you have the score.
I've made the same argument to our families. The skills the ACT science section measures (reading data, interpreting experiments, reasoning through evidence) map onto real college coursework far better than most in-class science tests do. A strong science score is a cheap way to signal exactly the kind of analytical ability selective programs, especially in STEM, want to see. We laid out the full case in why students shouldn't skip ACT science, a case that the ACT's own numbers reinforce.
ACT 2026 rumors to ignore: form rotation and field-test myths
Students will hear both of these from friends and from Reddit.
First is the idea that you can game which test form appears on a given date (which version of the test shows up when) so that signing up for a Sunday administration gets you a "leaked" Saturday form. About this, the ACT was emphatic: form rotation is held by three people in the entire organization, follows no year-to-year cadence, and is not predictable. Anyone claiming to know what's coming next is mistaken. Beyond the integrity problem, it's simply not a real strategy.
Second is the old advice about field test questions always landing in fixed spots, like the first and last reading passage. The ACT formally retracted that. Embedded field test questions can be placed anywhere. There's no map, so the only sound approach is the obvious one: treat every question as if it counts, because you can't tell which ones do.
What families should do this quarter
The roadmap is interesting. Your student's plan shouldn't change much because of it.
Use the new official practice forms the moment they become available in August. Nothing else moves a score as reliably as full-length, accurately scored practice.
Treat the free ACT videos as a supplement to a real study plan, not as the plan itself.
Don't wait on section retesting or remote proctoring. Build around the test as it exists today.
Take the science section at least once, particularly for any student eyeing a STEM major.
Get help translating score reports into focused action, because the ACT has admitted its own report doesn't do that yet.
The ACT is trying to become more useful to students, and several of these moves are good. But a test that's rebuilding itself in public is also a test where the gap between announcement and reality is wide. Plan based on upon what's real.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the ACT science section going away in 2026?
No. Science is now optional and reported separately from the 1–36 composite, and the ACT has confirmed it isn't being eliminated. 22 of the ACT's 24 state contracts still require a science assessment, and the ACT recommends students planning to test more than once should take science at least once.
When are the new free ACT practice tests coming out?
The ACT plans to release three new full-length practice forms by the end of 2026. Two are expected in mid-to-late August and a third in the fall, with digital versions, PDFs, and scoring keys released together rather than staggered.
Can students retake just one section of the ACT?
Not yet. Section retesting is in early "discovery" at the ACT, which is still consulting colleges on whether or not such scores would be accepted, and working out logistics and pricing. Until colleges confirm they'll honor section retests, students should prepare for the full exam.
Is ACT paper testing being discontinued?
No. Despite the shift toward digital testing, ACT leadership has confirmed the paper test will remain available. Students who perform better on paper can still choose that format.
Will the ACT and SAT release a new concordance table?
Yes, eventually. The ACT and College Board have agreed to build an updated concordance table; the work has started, but there's no firm release date. The College Board has referenced 2027 as a target.
Score At The Top Learning Centers & Schools has been helping Florida families turn standardized testing from a source of anxiety into a strategic advantage for over 40 years. To build an ACT plan around what's real, not what's rumored, visit scoreatthetop.com.
