These were: The organization's intent was to "adopt and publish a statement of the ground which should be covered and of the aims which should be sought by secondary school teaching in each of the following subjects (and in such others as may be desirable), and a plan of examination suitable as a test for admission to college: Botany, Chemistry, English, French, German, Greek, History, Latin, Mathematics, Physics, Zoology".

In the United States, this registry is borrowed by other institutions as a means of unambiguous identification; thus, a student might give his or her guidance department a college's name and address and its CEEB code to ensure that his or her transcript is sent correctly.

There exists a similar set of ACT codes for colleges and scholarships, centers, and high schools; however, these codes are less widely used outside ACT, Inc.[13] The SAT is a fee-based digital standardized test for college admissions in the United States, first administered in 1926.

The testing process was changed to give students three hours to take the exam plus 50 additional minutes to complete the essay.

[22] In the same announcement, the College Board also said they would be partnering with Khan Academy to make available, from spring 2015, free test preparation materials for the redesigned SAT.

[24] On May 13, 2015, the College Board announced the release of a new credential initiative to get students more interested in careers focused in STEM with a Project Lead the Way partnership.

[26] On January 25, 2022, College Board announced that the SAT will be delivered digitally in an attempt to change the format of test itself.

[27] Some new features of this digital version of the SAT include: a 2 hours testing period instead of the 3 hours period that has been used for the current SAT, more relevant topics that cover material that is given in college courses, and calculators will be allowed the entirety of the Math portion of the exam.

It also plays a large part in the college admissions process, showing students' intellectual capacity and genuine interest in learning.

The program allows many students to gain college credit for high performance on the AP exams, which cost $97 each, much in the same manner as the CLEP.

[citation needed] Critics of the Advanced Placement Program charge that courses and exams emphasize the breadth of content coverage instead of depth.

[35] In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, College Board began to roll out digital AP testing via the BlueBook app.

The Accuplacer test is used primarily by more than 1,000 high schools and colleges[38] to determine a student's needed placement.

Based on Wiggins and McTighe's "Understanding by Design" model, the SpringBoard program attempts to map knowledge into scholastic skill sets in preparation for Advanced Placement testing and college success.

Units of instruction are titrated to students within and across all school grades, providing a vertically articulated curriculum framework that scaffolds learning skills and subject test knowledge.

Implicit in the course curriculum, the program embeds pre-AP and AP teaching and learning strategies across grade school levels and classwork.

Teachers are provided with formative assessments, professional training, and various teaching tools to track student progress.

[44] Criticism of the Board and its exams goes back to at least 1922,[45] with a Harvard Alumni Bulletin article from prep school teacher Morgan Barnes.

Barnes took ten different examinations "in cognito qua candidate", requested the graded booklets of his exams, and attempted to confront some readers who scored them.

[45] Since the late 1970s, the College Board has been subject to criticism from students, educators, and consumer rights activists.

FairTest, an organization that advocates against over-dependence on standardized tests in school admissions, maintains that the SAT often underestimates the aptitude of African-American students and others.

[46] The consumer rights organization Americans for Educational Testing Reform (AETR) has criticized the College Board for violating its non-profit status through excessive profits and exorbitant executive compensation; nineteen of its executives make more than $300,000 per year, with CEO Gaston Caperton earning $1.3 million in 2009 (including deferred compensation).

[47][48] AETR also claims that College Board is acting unethically by selling test preparation materials, directly lobbying legislators and government officials, and refusing to acknowledge test-taker rights.

[53] In addition, because of the competitive nature of the test, many students take preparatory courses or have SAT tutoring, which can increase costs.

They say that writing teachers training their students for the SAT will not instill revision, depth, and accuracy but will instead guide them to produce long, formulaic, and wordy pieces.

However, in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the College Board created an alternate form of AP testing for that year.

Although the Board was aware of the error as early as December, it waited months to respond, and in late March, schools still did not have the correct details.

[63] An investigation by the New York Civil Liberties Union revealed that one of the College Board's customers was JAMRS, a military recruitment program run by the United States Department of Defense.

[67] In 2004, Hanban and the College Board developed the "AP Chinese Language and Culture Course and Exam" program.

[68] In October 2020, the College Board announced its intention to terminate financial ties with Hanban, in place since 2006, following a letter from U.S. senators critical of the relationship due to its affiliation with the Chinese government.