The College Board is not only changing their SAT exam and debuting it in March they are now changing their exam schedule. After exam reporting setbacks this past fall, the College Board announced earlier this month they eliminating the January dates for the SAT and SAT subject exams and adding another date in August. The changes will start in 2017 according to the College Board’s newly released “Test Dates and Deadlines,” which added anticipated test dates through 2019. The Atlantic was the first to report the exam schedule change in an article published on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The dates change will benefit students applying for early action and decision but might hinder low-income students.

As of now, the SAT is only administered during the regular school year, with test dates from October to June. The board made the decision they say after “feedback” from “K-12 and higher-education professionals, and test-center supervisors.” A spokeswoman for the College Board Katherine Levin touted the benefits of the new test date, saying, it will “provide students with earlier opportunities to take the SAT before submitting college applications, and more time to focus on coursework, school activities, and college applications in the fall of their senior year.”

What is certain is the summer date will benefit the College Board and test preparation companies. The College Board believes the August exam date will give them an edge over the ACT exam, which is administered in September. More high school students already take the Act over the SAT, and the College Board hopes with the newly redesigned exam better reflecting the high school curriculum and the August date they will get an edge over the ACT.

The August date will also give students more work in the summer, but the benefits will outweigh the negatives. Students can benefit from focusing on preparing for the exam without the interference of schoolwork. Most schools will have just begun the academic year when the College Board administers the exam. Students in Massachusetts, New York, and Chicago will take the exam before the school year starts. Students will have more time to receive their results before the Nov. 1 deadline for early action and decision admissions. Students will also still have the October date for the second effort to take the exam before early admissions if they need to retake the exam.

There will be logistical problems, however, with an exam administered in the summer heat and before school start in some states and locations. The College Board will have the most problems with test centers in the Northeast were the academic year does not yet commence. Neither will regular guidance counselors at schools anywhere in the country be willing to work during the vacation months. Prep classes will have to be given more often and closer to the exam date to help students keep up momentum for the exam, if not it will be harder for students to retain what they learned and prepared for the exam.

Low-income students unable to afford the test preparation will be the most disadvantaged by the new schedule. Low-income students already apply less to early admissions because they cannot bind themselves to any college before they receive news about their financial aid packages. The biggest impediment for low-income students, however, is the fee waiver system, which usually does not allow students to take the SAT until November of their senior year becoming the second reason they miss early admissions.

Still the College Board insists students will find it easier to prepare for the new SAT without expensive preparation programs because it tests knowledge based on the high school curriculum quite closely aligned with Common Core. Experts believe he August exam will help low-income students and give them the opportunity to apply for early admissions if they can afford to pay for the exam. Still all students will need the motivation to prepare and study for the exam scheduled at the end of the summer vacation. Experts are concerned the summer exam might, in the end, backfire.

August 2017 will be the first time the College Board will administer the SATs in August since 1963. In 2012, The College Board planned to include an August test date for gifted students only taking a “preparation program” at Amherst College, but the board later canceled the exam “calling it inappropriate.”

The College Board decided on the August date after a year plagued with problems. There was a printing problem with the June 6 SAT exam booklets and the scores were dropped in two sections, raising questions as to the exams validity for college admissions. A cheating scandal erupted in Asia, where they have figured out how to anticipate reused exams.

The College Board has been having problems with expediting SAT scores reporting from the fall exam. The board delayed releasing the rush SAT score reports from the October exams. The board was unable to release the results in time for students to have them sent to colleges for their early action and decision applications. Students missed meeting early action and decision deadlines. The College Board continued having score reporting problems delaying the PSAT results by a month while they continue to have problems with rush SAT reporting.

Then a major snowstorm rocked the East Coast at the same time as the January 23 exam, the last time the board was administering the old SAT exam, with test centers rescheduling the exam date for Feb. 20. Many seniors were taking the exam as a “last ditch effort” for college admission. Now with scores reporting as late as March it will be too late for April college decisions. Although this January exam date had record numbers of students registered, the January date usually has the least amount of students taking the exam, as the Atlantic noted juniors at private schools often took the exam along with desperate seniors.