BJU Press Testing for Homeschoolers: What You’re Actually Buying
If you ask ten homeschool parents where to get a standardized test, at least half of them will say BJU Press. It is the most recognized name in homeschool testing. It has been around for decades. Your co-op probably recommends them. Your state homeschool organization might even link to them on their testing resources page.
But here is something worth understanding before you order: BJU Press does not make a test. They sell access to other people’s tests. And once you understand what you are actually buying through BJU Press, the question becomes whether that middle layer is adding value or just adding cost.
What BJU Press Testing Actually Is
BJU Press is an authorized provider of the Iowa Assessments and the Stanford 10. When you order “BJU Press testing,” you are ordering one of those two tests administered through BJU Press’s online platform. BJU Press handles the ordering, the platform delivery, the proctoring requirements, and the score reporting. But the test content itself comes from the publishers: Riverside Insights (Iowa Assessments) and Pearson (Stanford 10).
In other words, BJU Press is a portal. They are the storefront between you and the test publisher.
That is not inherently a bad thing. Standardized test publishers generally do not sell directly to individual homeschool families. You need an authorized intermediary, and BJU Press is one of the most established ones. But it is important to know that when you are paying BJU Press, you are paying for the test plus the middleman’s infrastructure and markup.
What It Costs
Pricing through BJU Press varies by test and grade level, but the general range is:
Iowa Assessments online: roughly $60 to $85 per student.
Stanford 10 online: roughly $60 to $90 per student.
That is per student. Per test. One time. There are no family rates, no multi-child discounts, and no option to retest within the same purchase.
For a family with four children, a single round of testing through BJU Press runs $240 to $360. And that gives you one snapshot, one time, with no way to check progress later without starting the process over.
What You Get Back
What you receive depends on which test you ordered:
Iowa Assessments: percentile rankings, stanines, and grade equivalent scores for reading, language, math, science, and social studies. Some sub-scores are available depending on the form and level.
Stanford 10: percentile rankings, stanines, grade equivalents, and scaled scores with somewhat more sub-score detail than the Iowa, including separate categories within math and reading.
Results are typically available within 5 to 7 business days after your child completes the online test.
The Friction You Should Know About
Proctoring requirements. BJU Press requires that an adult (18 years or older) be present as a proctor during the entire test. The test publishers themselves have additional requirements and restrictions that BJU Press is contractually obligated to enforce. This is not a test you hand to your child and check on later. You are committed for the duration.
State embargoes and restrictions. Certain versions of the Iowa Assessments and the Stanford 10 are embargoed in specific states. That means depending on where you live, you may not be able to order the form you want, or you may be limited to one test or the other. BJU Press lists these restrictions on their site, but many parents do not discover them until they are already in the ordering process.
No retesting within 3 months. The test publishers prohibit students from taking the same standardized achievement test within three months of a prior administration. This is a publisher rule, not a BJU Press rule, but it means that if your child takes the Iowa through BJU Press in March, they cannot retake any standardized achievement test until June at the earliest. For a parent who wants to check progress after making curriculum adjustments, that is a long time to wait.
You are paying for the middleman. BJU Press provides a real service: they give you access to tests you cannot buy directly. But you are paying for the test content, the platform, the proctor management, and BJU Press’s overhead. That is why a single test for one student costs $60 to $90 when the underlying test content is the same Iowa or Stanford 10 you could get through other providers, sometimes for less.
The results are still broad. Whether you take the Iowa or Stanford 10 through BJU Press, you are still getting broad-subject scores. Math, Reading, Language. Maybe a few sub-categories. You are not getting topic-level detail that tells you whether fractions or geometry or measurement is the specific issue. The middleman does not change what the test actually measures.
What You Are Really Looking For
Think about why you went to BJU Press in the first place. You were not excited about ordering a standardized test. You were looking for a way to check where your kids stand. You wanted confidence that your teaching is working. You wanted to catch any gaps before they become problems.
BJU Press is just the most well-known door to walk through. But the room on the other side, a broad-subject percentile score on a test designed for institutional use, is the same room every traditional testing path leads to.
There is a different door. Homeschool Test Track was built to give homeschool families what they are actually looking for, without the institutional middleman:
Topic-level scoring that tells you what to work on. Your child does not get a “Math” score. They get separate scores for algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis, each compared to the national average. You see immediately where they are strong and where they need help. No guessing, no interpreting percentiles, no wondering what a stanine means.
A parent dashboard built for you. Log in and see every child’s results in one place. Strengths and Learning Gaps are sorted automatically. You do not need to download a PDF, open a spreadsheet, or call anyone for an explanation. The data is clear the moment you look at it.
No middleman. Homeschool Test Track is the test. You are not ordering someone else’s assessment through a third-party portal. You create your account, your children take the assessment, and the results are in your dashboard instantly. There is no publisher between you and the data. No embargoes by state. No proctoring requirements beyond your own parenting judgment.
$145 for up to 6 kids, all year. Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies. Grades 1 through 6. Unlimited test attempts. Instant results. Full attempt history for tracking progress over time. For the price of testing two children once through BJU Press, you can test your entire family for a full year with topic-level detail and the ability to retest as many times as you want.
No retesting restrictions. Want to test in September and again in November? Go ahead. Every attempt is saved. You can see the trend for every child, every subject, every topic. The three-month lockout does not exist because Homeschool Test Track is not bound by the same publisher agreements that restrict how the Iowa and Stanford 10 are administered.
No automatic renewal. When your year is up, you decide whether to continue. No subscriptions running in the background. You are in control.
The Bottom Line
BJU Press is a trusted name and they provide a legitimate service. But what they are selling you is access to institutional tests through an institutional process at institutional prices. For some families, especially those in states that require a specific named test like the Iowa or Stanford 10 for compliance, that may be the right path.
But if what you actually want is to know where your children stand, find the gaps, and track their progress over time, without the cost, the waiting, the restrictions, and the middleman, there is a simpler and more affordable way to get there.
