The Classic Learning Test, a sat alternative built around longer readings and older texts, has moved from a niche project to a widely accepted college entrance exam. Founded in 2015 by two Marylanders, the test has now been accepted by more than 350 colleges and has logged more than 500,000 test-takers.
Its rise says as much about American education as it does about testing. The CLT has become especially popular among Christian schools and homeschooling families across the United States, while Florida became the first state to accept it in 2023. That gave the exam a public foothold beyond the private-school networks that first embraced it.
Jeremy Tate, who co-founded the test, said the CLT is conservative in some sense “if you mean preserving and championing the ancient vision for education.” He said the goal is “the cultivation of wisdom, the passing down of an intellectual and cultural inheritance,” adding that “these are all things that make a culture rich and substantial.” The CLT’s reading passages run 500 to 600 words, far longer than the 25 to 150 words students see on SAT reading passages, and its academic board recommends readings from authors it believes have shaped history and culture.
The board includes Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and activist Christopher Rufo, along with Cornel West, whom Tate once described as “as left as they come.” Audrey Beardsley said the CLT has a “religious foundation that is very clear,” while David Blobaum said it has “gotten lucky from the polarization in the country” and that some schools may “want to give the middle finger to the SAT and ACT by accepting the CLT exam.”
Tate returned to Maryland in 2007 after earning a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and later worked as a college counselor at Mount de Sales Academy in Catonsville, where he said mainstream tests pushed educators to ignore the classics. The company now has a staff of 70 and headquarters in historic Annapolis, Maryland, and its growth shows that the CLT is no longer just a protest against the SAT and ACT. It is now part of the testing market those exams have dominated for decades.
