IE Raised Its SAT and ACT Minimums — What Changed and When

If you're using the SAT or ACT to apply to IE University instead of sitting its own Admissions Test, check which numbers you're working from. IE raised its minimums this cycle, and a lot of what's still circulating quotes the old ones.

What IE asks for now

Applying to a Science & Technology programme with an SAT score? IE additionally expects at least 700 out of 800 in SAT Mathematics.^[1]

What it used to be

So the SAT bar moved by 100 points and the ACT bar by 4. The LNAT has held at 22 across every cycle we checked.

This is verifiable rather than hearsay: archived captures of IE's own Admissions Test page from September 2024 and September 2025 both show SAT 1200 and ACT 24, and the live page now shows 1300 and 28.

IE also removed something

The 2025 version of that page carried a detail the current one doesn't: alongside the SAT minimum, IE published a 25th/75th percentile range of 1270/1460 for admitted applicants.

That range is gone from the live page. IE now publishes the minimum only.

⚠️ Treat that 1270/1460 range as history, not guidance. It describes what IE published in 2025, not what it publishes now, and not what any current cohort scored. It's the closest thing to admitted-profile data IE has ever released, which makes it tempting to lean on — don't. If you see it quoted as current, that's a page that hasn't been updated.

Why this matters more than it looks

Advice ages badly and nobody re-dates it. A tutoring provider's IE guide still tells readers "While IE's minimum SAT score is 1200, many students have over 1300" — a sentence that, on today's numbers, tells you to clear a bar that has since become the floor. On Reddit in March 2025 an applicant was advised "Minimum is 1200 and the average is 1270 so don't take IE test" (thread) — reasonable at the time, misleading now.

It changes the SAT-versus-IE-test decision. If you were choosing the SAT route partly because 1200 looked achievable, 1300 is a different proposition — and the honest comparison shifts:

• The SAT runs on fixed international dates, can be retaken, and gives you a score you can see.
• The IE Admissions Test is bookable whenever you like, but you sit it once, and IE never tells you your score.

Neither is obviously easier. They fail differently: the SAT costs you time and repeat sittings; the IE test costs you your only attempt.

What hasn't changed

• The LNAT minimum, at 22.
• The four aptitude sections of IE's own test — numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, deductive logical thinking and learning efficiency have kept the same timings and task counts across every archived version we checked.
• The one-attempt rule, and the fact that your score is never disclosed.

What has changed on IE's own test, alongside the SAT/ACT bar, is the Mathematics Assessment: there was none at all in 2024, a 60-minute Science & Technology version by 2025, and a 15-minute version for BBA, BIE and PPLE this cycle. If you're comparing routes, that's the other moving part.

If you were aiming at the old bar

Three practical options, in the order most people should consider them:

1. Retake the SAT or ACT, if there's time in your round. Both can be sat again; IE's test cannot.
2. Switch to the IE Admissions Test. It needs no curriculum-specific content, is bookable on demand, and asks for reasoning rather than recall — but remember it's one attempt with no score feedback.
3. Submit both, if you have them. IE accepts more than one route; check the current requirements for your programme before assuming how they're weighed.

Whatever you choose, verify the current numbers on IE's own admissions pages before you plan around them — including the ones on this page.

Sources: IE University's Admissions Test page as published on 18 August 2026, compared against archived captures of the same page from September 2024 and September 2025. Community observations are attributed and linked, and are individual reports rather than data. IEPrep is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by IE University.