Bright Futures Score Requirements Just Got Harder for the Class of 2028 – Except the Top-Tier ACT
Florida has raised the “price” of its largest merit scholarship program. The state's 2026-27 Bright Futures Student Handbook, published by the Office of Student Financial Assistance, sets higher test-score requirements for students graduating high school in 2028: this year's juniors. The SAT bar for the top-tier Florida Academic Scholars award rises to 1350 from 1330, and all three Medallion test-score thresholds increase.
One number, however, did not move. The ACT requirement for Academic Scholars remains 29.
The new thresholds are official and published, but few families have noticed them yet, and that SAT-versus-ACT asymmetry is the most useful fact in the entire handbook. Here is what changed and how a junior should plan for it.
The new requirements, side by side
Bright Futures has two main tiers. Florida Academic Scholars (FAS) covers 100% of tuition and applicable fees at Florida's public universities; Florida Medallion Scholars (FMS) covers 75%. Both tiers accept any of three exams: the SAT, the ACT, or the Classic Learning Test (CLT), a newer exam that Florida accepts for state scholarship purposes.
Here are the score requirements from the 2026-27 Bright Futures Student Handbook, by graduation year:
The GPA requirements are unchanged: 3.5 for Academic Scholars and 3.0 for Medallion, on Bright Futures' own recalculated scale. The state recomputes that GPA from the required 16 core academic credits, with extra weight for AP, IB, AICE, honors, and dual-enrollment courses, so the number on the transcript is rarely the number the state uses. The service requirements are also unchanged, and effective with the 2022-23 graduating class they canbe satisfied with volunteer hours, paid work hours, or a combination.
Current seniors keep the old numbers. If your student graduates at the end of the 2026-27 school year, nothing in this article changes your targets, and the deadlines at the end still apply to you.
Twenty SAT points is a bigger deal than it looks
Families sometimes shrug at a 20-point increase. On the SAT's 1600-point scale it sounds like a rounding error. It is not, for two reasons.
First, the students most affected by a threshold change are, by definition, the students sitting near the threshold. A student scoring 1400 was safe before and is safe now. The student at 1330 or 1340 (a genuinely strong scorer, comfortably above the national average) just went from earning four years of full tuition to earning 75% of it.
Be precise about what that means in dollars, because precision is the whole game here. In-state tuition and applicable fees run about $6,400 a year at the University of Florida, and Florida has held base tuition flat for more than a decade. So the gap between the two tiers is roughly $1,600 a year, call it $6,500 over four years. The number that should actually focus a junior's attention is bigger: the full Academic Scholars award is worth more than $25,000 across a four-year degree, and the difference between winning it and settling for the lower tier can come down to 20 SAT points. That makes those points some of the best return on investment a family may ever earn.
Second, missing the cutoff compounds silently. A junior who assumes the old 1330 target, hits 1335 in the spring, and stops testing has locked in the Medallion award without realizing it. Know which class year your student is in, know the exact number that applies, and treat "close" as a reason to keep testing.
The top-tier ACT path did not get harder
Now the asymmetry. For Academic Scholars, the state raised the SAT and CLT requirements but left the ACT at 29. For a junior chasing the full-tuition award, the ACT is the only route whose goal did not go up.
One honest caveat before anyone switches tests. On the official SAT-ACT concordance tables, a 29 ACT corresponds to roughly a 1340-1350 SAT, so the state has arguably aligned the two exams rather than opened a back door. The opportunity is real for a specific student: the one whose ACT performance runs ahead of what their SAT score would predict. Plenty of students fit that profile. Plenty don't, and the only way to know is to measure.
Two more mechanics work in the ACT's favor. Starting with this year’s Class of 2026, the ACT's Science section became optional for Bright Futures, and the Composite score is calculated from English, Math, and Reading (for students who did take Science, the state uses whichever Composite is higher). And Bright Futures superscores both exams: your best SAT section scores across sittings, your best ACT subject scores across sittings.
The strategic picture for the Class of 2028, then:
A student naturally stronger on the SAT should simply aim at 1350, with a prep plan and enough sittings to get there.
A student near the Academic Scholars line on both tests should look hard at the ACT, where the target held at 29, while the SAT target moved up.
A student chasing Medallion gets no such break. Both tests rose, so the choice between SAT prep and ACT prep should follow whichever test the student scores better on, full stop.
The way to find out which category your student falls into is to try both tests. A free, full-length SAT or ACT simulation under real conditions shows where your student stands against the exact thresholds for their class year, and which test gives them the shorter path across the threshold that matters.
What juniors should do this year
The mechanics of Bright Futures reward students who plan early, because the state accepts scores from any test through August 31 of the graduation year. For the Class of 2028 that means roughly two full years of runway, and a sensible sequence looks like this:
Take full-length diagnostic tests this fall, and pick either SAT or ACT based on results, not habit.
Set the target at the Class of 2028 number: 1350 SAT or 29 ACT for the full award, 1200 SAT or 25 ACT for Medallion. Post it on the fridge door! targets drift when they live in memory.
Plan for at least two or three real sittings between spring of junior year and fall of senior year. Bright Futures superscores, so an extra sitting can only help.
Bank the service hours now. Academic Scholars requires 100 hours (Medallion takes 75 volunteer hours, or 100 if any paid-work hours are used), and senior fall is the wrong time to discover you're 40 hours short.
Senior year, file the Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) when it opens on October 1. This step is absolute: miss the August 31 application deadline after graduation and the award is forfeited, regardless of scores.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Bright Futures test score requirements for the Class of 2028?
Students graduating in 2028 need a 1350 SAT, 29 ACT, or 96 CLT for the Florida Academic Scholars award (100% of tuition and fees), or a 1200 SAT, 25 ACT, or 83 CLT for Florida Medallion Scholars (75%). GPA requirements are unchanged at 3.5 and 3.0 on the Bright Futures recalculated scale.
Did the ACT requirement for Bright Futures change?
Only for the Medallion tier, where it rose from 24 to 25. The Academic Scholars ACT requirement stays at 29 for the Class of 2028, even though the SAT requirement rose from 1330 to 1350. For juniors near the top-tier line, the ACT is the one path that did not get harder.
What GPA do you need for Bright Futures?
A 3.5 for Florida Academic Scholars and a 3.0 for Medallion, unchanged for the Class of 2028. Bright Futures calculates its own weighted GPA from the 16 core academic credits, adding weight for AP, IB, AICE, honors, and dual-enrollment courses, so the transcript GPA and the Bright Futures GPA rarely match. The score increases were the only change this cycle.
Do current seniors keep the old Bright Futures requirements?
Yes. The Class of 2027 qualifies under the existing numbers: 1330 SAT or 29 ACT for Academic Scholars, 1190 SAT or 24 ACT for Medallion. The published increases apply to students graduating in 2028; the state has not yet published thresholds for later classes.
How late can my student take the SAT or ACT for Bright Futures?
Scores from tests taken through August 31 of the high school graduation year count, and Bright Futures superscores across every sitting. Students must also submit the Florida Financial Aid Application (FFAA) during senior year, between October 1 and August 31; missing that application deadline forfeits the award entirely.
Florida sets these thresholds in statute and revisits them regularly, and every revision so far has pushed them up. Whatever the numbers are when your student starts high school, plan for the possibility that they will be higher by graduation, and build a testing plan with margin to spare rather than one that aims to just clear the bar.
Families who want the full picture in one sitting can join our Bright Futures 101 webinar, and top scorers should also read about the Benacquisto Scholarship, the state's separate award for National Merit finalists.
Score At The Top Learning Centers & Schools has prepared Florida students for the SAT and ACT for over 40 years. Start with a free, full-length test simulation and see exactly where your student stands against the Bright Futures lines.
