How to get notified when exam dates or registration open

Published 13 October 2026

Short answer: use the exam body's own reminders if it sends them. If it doesn't, watch the page that lists the dates: a whole-page watch tells you when its content changes, and a words watch tells you when something specific shows up, such as next year's date. Check any date you are told about on the official page before you act on it.

Exam dates and deadlines are published on a page and then edited in place. A new season is added, a deadline moves, a line changes from open to closed. If you only look when you remember to, the risk is not a missed email. It is finding out the day after a deadline.

Start with the exam body's own reminders

Check whether the exam body offers an account or email reminders for the dates you sign up for. If it does, use them, because it knows your registration and a page watcher does not. A watcher is for the gap before that: when you don't have an account yet, when you are waiting for dates that haven't been announced, or when the account only sends reminders about a date you have already chosen.

What the pages look like

We looked at two real pages on 13 October 2026. The College Board's SAT dates page said that registration "is open for all students for all the remaining fall 2026 test dates and all spring 2027 test dates", and that "SAT Weekend deadlines expire at 11:59 p.m. ET, U.S." The ACT's registration page listed lines such as "Early Registration Ends: Nov 6", "Register by November 6" and "Late Registration*: November 29".

Two things follow for anyone watching them. The date you need is a line of ordinary text on a public page, which a page watcher can read. And the text also carries a time and a time zone ("11:59 p.m. ET"), so treat any alert as a prompt to go and read the page.

Which watch to choose

The whole page changes. The easiest, and the right one when you don't know what will change. It reports lines that were added or removed.
Some words appear. The most precise. Use it when you know what the page will say once the thing you're waiting for has happened, for example a year that isn't on the page yet.

How to monitor a webpage for changes explains the difference in more detail. Three traps matter for exam pages in particular.

The words are already there. A "words appear" watch is waiting for words to go from absent to present. When we asked for the words “registration is open” appear on the SAT page, the reading was "“registration is open” is on the page", so the watch had nothing to wait for. Choose words that are not on the page yet.

Dates are announced in the future tense. The product ignores a phrase that is followed by words such as "on", "in", "from", "soon" or "starting", on purpose, so that "applications open on March 1" doesn't count as "applications open". We checked that on 13 October 2026 with made-up pages. "Registration opens on March 1." and "Registration opens soon." were both read as "registration opens" not on the page, and "Registration opens" on its own was read as on the page. So a watch for “registration opens” will not fire for the announcement of a date. For that, use a whole-page watch, or a year such as “2028”.

The exact wording. Pages say "Register by November 6" in one place and "Early Registration Ends: Nov 6" in another. A phrase has to match the page's own wording, so a short fixed token, such as a year or a month name, is more reliable than a sentence.

What we tested

Readings from the live product on 13 October 2026, run from the same network as the production server.

SAT dates page. "tell me when this page changes" gave "Meaningful content change" with "74 lines (2,328 characters) of content". the words “June 2028” appear gave "“June 2028” not on the page", and the words “registration is closed” appear gave "“registration is closed” not on the page". Both are waiting for something.
ACT registration page. "132 lines (8,915 characters) of content", and the words “2028” appear gave "“2028” not on the page".
A request in plain words. "tell me when new test dates are added" on the SAT page first came back as "New content mentioning “test dates are added”", a watch that would have needed a line containing those exact words. We found that was wrong and fixed it on 13 October. The same sentence is now read as "Meaningful content change".
A UK exam-board site (JCQ). The key dates and timetables page was refused: "This site blocks automated visits, so we would never be able to check it for you."

We have not watched either exam page change, so we can't show you a real alert for one. The readings above are starting points.

Limits to plan for

Once a day. On the free plan a page is read once a day. That is plenty for a date announced weeks ahead, and not enough for anything that opens and closes within a day.
Not your account. We only read public pages. A watcher can't tell you about your own registration, a seat at a test centre or a score release behind a login.
Confirm on the official page. For a deadline, treat the alert as a prompt and read the date, the time and the time zone on the exam body's own page.
Pages that refuse programs. We respect a site's request to stay away, and tell you at setup rather than start a watch that can't work.

Starting one

Paste the page that lists the dates on the home page, say what you are waiting for, and read the starting reading before you give an email address. For the general choice of what to watch, see how to get notified when a website changes. The limits are written out in the terms.