Who developed the SAT and when was it first introduced?
Executive summary
The SAT was developed in the 1920s by Princeton psychologist Carl Campbell Brigham after he adapted Army aptitude testing for college admissions, and it was first administered on June 23, 1926, to roughly 8,000 students [1] [2] [3]. Over time the test’s stewardship and administration evolved—while Brigham created the original exam at the College Board’s request, the College Board and, later, Educational Testing Service (ETS) played central roles in administering and revising the SAT [2] [1] [4].
1. Origins: a College Board commission and an Army test reworked
In the mid-1920s the College Board sought a uniform college-admissions exam and hired Carl Brigham, who had worked on Army intelligence testing during World War I, to develop it; Brigham transformed the Army Alpha-style questions into what became the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) by 1926 [2] [3].
2. The first administration: June 23, 1926, and a mass debut
The test that Brigham produced was administered for the first time on June 23, 1926, to approximately 8,000 students, marking the SAT’s public debut as a standardized admissions instrument [1].
3. Who “developed” vs. who “owns” and administers: a layered history
Although Brigham is credited as the original developer of the SAT, ownership and operational control have not been static: the College Board commissioned and has long owned the exam, and later institutional actors—most notably the Educational Testing Service, founded in 1947 with support from the College Board, the Carnegie Foundation, and the American Council on Education—took on major roles in developing, scoring, and publishing standardized tests including the SAT [2] [1] [4].
4. Why the nuance matters: development, revision, and commercial ecosystems
Calling Brigham the developer is historically accurate for the test’s initial form, but the SAT seen by students across decades is the product of continuous revisions, administration, and commercialization by the College Board and testing organizations—changes that include removing and reintroducing math sections, scoring revisions, and later modernizations—so credit for the modern SAT is shared across its institutional stewards as well as its original architect [1] [3] [4].
5. Alternative framings and the limits of the record
Some contemporary descriptions emphasize the College Board or ETS as developers because they own, publish, or administer the exam today, a framing supported by sources that describe ETS’s historic role in consolidating testing operations after 1947, but primary historical attribution to Carl Brigham for the 1926 test is well-documented in multiple accounts [1] [2] [4]; reporting here does not attempt to adjudicate later debates about who “shaped” the SAT through mid-century reforms beyond citing institutional roles where sources record them [1] [2].