How a Parent Should Use a College Board Account

Only students can create College Board accounts, not parents and guardians. If you are a parent hoping to help your child with College Board programs and resources like AP^®, SAT^®, BigFuture^®, and more, learn how to use their College Board account in this post.

What is a College Board Account?

A College Board account is the login a student uses to access services to prepare for life after high school. With a College Board Account, a student can manage all their College Board activities in programs such as SAT, PSAT/NMSQT^®, AP, BigFuture, CLEP^®, and more.

Read this post to learn more about the benefits of signing up for a College Board Account.

Can parents create their own accounts?

No. At this time, only students can create accounts. In their student account, there is a section to add parent contact information (see: cc a parent). You can opt in to receive emails from the College Board related to your child’s account.  

Should parents register their child for the SAT or other college planning activities?

In order to register for the SAT, you will need to create an account with your child or help them log in to their existing account because the registration will be in their name. For security reasons, there can only be one account associated with a student’s official College Board record. 

Many of our college and career planning resources on BigFuture can be viewed without a College Board account. If you want to search for scholarships, save a college list, or other activities that require an account, you will need to work with your child to sign into their account.

Can I create an account on behalf of my child?

We recommend that your child create the account or that you create it together. Only one account can be tied to your child's official College Board record, and it's important that they be able to access the account.

 In other words, if you create an account without your child's input and register them for the SAT, and they later try to create another account to see their scores, they'll be blocked from doing so.

Make sure the child has access to the email provided for the account in case they need help signing in.

If your child has trouble accessing their existing College Board account, they can contact customer service.

Are there other ways for a parent to keep track of important college planning dates and deadlines?

Yes, another way to stay in the loop with College Board programs is to fill out the Parent Information section when your child is creating their College Board Account.

In the last section on the first page of registration, a child or their parent will fill in the following fields to receive future emails from College Board around important updates related to College Board programs. 

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Confirm email address
• Check box to be cc’ed on emails from College Board
• Check box to receive registration reminders, college planning resources, and other messages related to College Board programs