Signing up for the ATI TEAS sits at a strange crossroads: you are not yet a nursing student, but the school you want to attend has already started judging you. The exam itself is administered by ATI (Assessment Technologies Institute), and while the test content is uniform, the way you actually book a seat depends almost entirely on the program you are applying to.
Some schools run their own proctored sittings on campus. Others outsource everything to ATI's online proctoring partner or to PSI test centers. A handful let you choose. Knowing which path applies to you before you ever load atitesting.com saves both money and a wasted afternoon.
Most candidates burn 30 to 90 minutes just trying to figure out where the registration link lives. The short answer: there is no single registration link. ATI runs the gradebook and the test, but it does not always run the calendar. If you go straight to the ATI store hoping to pick a date, you may find no sessions in your area at all — because your future nursing school controls them. That is not a bug. That is by design, and once you see the structure it becomes simple.
This guide walks through the exact sequence: creating an ATI Testing account, deciding between online proctored at home and PSI in-person, picking up your program's voucher window if there is one, paying the $115 fee, scheduling, sending scores, and rescheduling without losing your money. Every step is sourced from current ATI policy and from what the major U.S. nursing programs actually publish on their pre-nursing pages. If you are sitting the TEAS test prep course in parallel, that is fine — you can usually register first and study against a hard deadline.
Everything starts at atitesting.com. Click Create an Account at the top right. ATI asks for a username, password, first and last name as they appear on your government photo ID, date of birth, address, phone number, and the security questions it will use if you forget your password. The name field matters more than people realize. If your driver's license says Katherine and you type Katie, your proctor on test day may refuse to seat you. Match the ID exactly, including middle initial if it is printed there.
Halfway through the form there is a dropdown labeled Institution. Pick your nursing program if you already know where you are applying. If you have not chosen yet, select "Self / No Institution" — you can attach a school later by editing your profile. The institution link is what unlocks any pre-paid vouchers, group bookings, or campus-administered sessions that program runs. Leaving it blank does not stop you from registering; it just hides those private dates.
Verify your email immediately. ATI sends a one-time link that expires in 24 hours. If it ends up in spam (common for Gmail and Yahoo), search for "noreply@atitesting.com" and mark as safe. Without verification, you cannot purchase or schedule anything. Log out, log back in, and confirm your dashboard shows the green "verified" badge.
Now you are ready to shop for a session — but first, you have to decide which version of the test you want, because that choice changes everything that follows. Brushing up with TEAS science practice questions while you wait for that email is not a bad use of five minutes.
The name on your ATI account must match your government photo ID. Mismatches — even a missing hyphen or a maiden name — are the single most common reason candidates get turned away at the test center. Fix the name on your ATI profile before you pay, not after. Editing it after a transcript has been ordered triggers a manual ATI support review that can take 5 business days to resolve.
ATI offers two delivery formats and they are not equivalent. The first is Online Proctored, where you sit the exam from your own home with a live human watching you through your webcam. Sessions are managed by ProctorU on behalf of ATI.
You need a personal laptop or desktop (Chromebooks are not supported), a working webcam and microphone, a wired Ethernet connection ideally, a quiet private room with no other people, no second monitor, no phone within reach, and a photo ID. Bathroom breaks during the exam are not allowed under online proctoring — if you leave the camera frame, the proctor terminates the attempt.
The second is PSI In-Person, which uses the same network of test centers PSI runs for nursing licensure, real estate, and many state exams. You drive to a PSI center, lock your belongings, and sit at a fixed workstation. The advantage: you are not gambling on your home internet, and you are allowed a single break during the test (the clock keeps running). The disadvantage: PSI centers cluster around metro areas, so rural candidates may face a 60- to 90-minute drive.
There is also a third path that many candidates miss entirely: school-administered sessions. If your target nursing program runs its own TEAS days (most large community college nursing programs do), those sessions are usually cheaper, sometimes by 20 or 30 dollars, and your scores send automatically to the school with no transcript fee.
The catch is that they fill in days. Check your program's admissions page before you book through ATI directly — you might be paying retail when you didn't need to. The same logic applies if you are also preparing for the TEAS math practice test sections under a tight deadline.
Sit the TEAS from home with a live webcam proctor watching you in real time. No bathroom breaks for the full 3.5 hours. Wired ethernet strongly recommended over Wi-Fi. Personal laptop or desktop only — no Chromebooks or tablets. Standard $115 fee, available most days of the week.
Drive to a physical PSI location and sit at a fixed workstation. One scheduled break allowed during the exam, but the clock keeps running. All personal items locked outside. Quiet environment with proctors physically present. $115 fee, occasionally with a small center surcharge.
Hosted directly on your target nursing program's campus, usually in a computer lab. Often discounted by 20 to 30 dollars compared to retail. Scores auto-transmit to that program with no transcript fee. Dates are limited and fill within days of release.
Some nursing programs pre-purchase blocks of TEAS attempts and distribute voucher codes to pre-nursing students. Enter the voucher code at checkout to zero out the balance. Check with your program's admissions office before paying retail — vouchers are not always advertised publicly.
From your ATI dashboard, click the Online Store, then TEAS. The calendar shows what is available in your region for the next 90 days. Filter by delivery format. If your school sells private sessions, they appear at the top under "Institutional" — those are the ones tied to the institution code you entered during registration. Click a date, pick a time slot, and the seat is held in your cart for 15 minutes.
Pay attention to the start time. Online proctored sessions usually let you check in 30 minutes before the listed time, but you must be in front of your webcam at the official start or the attempt is forfeited with no refund. PSI centers ask you to arrive 30 minutes early for ID check and locker assignment. If you show up late at PSI, even by ten minutes, the test administrator can refuse to seat you and there is no appeal.
Once you pay, ATI emails a confirmation within minutes. Print it or save the PDF — the confirmation number is what PSI or ProctorU uses to look you up if your account does not load on test day. Add the date to your calendar with a 48-hour reminder, because that is the cutoff for free rescheduling (more on that below).
Candidates with documented disabilities can request accommodations through ATI's accessibility coordinator, but the request must be submitted at least 14 days before the desired test date, with supporting documentation from a licensed provider. Common approved accommodations include extended time (1.5× or 2×), a separate testing room, and frequent breaks. Do not register first and request accommodations second — book the date after approval comes through, otherwise you will pay a reschedule fee. Same logic applies if you plan to retake the TEAS English practice test review the night before.
Personal laptop or desktop (no Chromebooks, no tablets). Webcam and microphone. Wired internet preferred — Wi-Fi tolerated but blamed for most session terminations. Quiet private room, door closed, no other people. Whiteboard or single sheet of blank paper allowed for scratch work, shown to camera at start and destroyed on camera at end. No bathroom breaks once the exam starts.
Two forms of ID: one government photo (license or passport), one with signature (credit card OK). Arrive 30 minutes early. All personal items locked outside the testing room — phones, watches, smartwatches, even tissues. One scheduled break during the exam, but the clock keeps running. Center provides a noteboard or laminated sheet for scratch work.
Format varies by program. Most run a paper-equivalent computer-based version in a campus lab. Bring your ATI login, photo ID, and confirmation number. Scores typically post the same day. Program may set its own start time, dress code, and break policy.
Submit ATI's accommodation request form with documentation 14+ days before your target date. Common approvals: extended time (1.5× = 5h14m, 2× = 6h58m), separate room, additional breaks, screen magnification. You will get an email confirmation listing exactly what is approved.
The advertised TEAS price is $115 in the United States. That covers one attempt, the proctoring, and the score release to one institution of your choice at the time of registration. It does not automatically cover every nursing program you plan to apply to. If you want a second school to see your results, you order a separate transcript through ATI at $27 per transcript per recipient. Three target schools means $115 + $27 + $27 = $169 total just to put your numbers in front of every admissions committee.
Outside the U.S. the price shifts: Canada is roughly CAD $145, and ATI charges international candidates in U.S. dollars with the same $115 baseline but a higher proctoring surcharge for some regions. PSI centers occasionally add a small facility fee, usually $15 to $25, that appears at checkout and not in any advertised pricing.
Payment is taken by credit card, debit card, or in some cases PayPal. ATI does not accept cash, money orders, or school purchase orders for individual candidates — those route through institutional accounts only. If your nursing program reimburses the TEAS fee, save the ATI email receipt; it is the only document most financial aid offices accept. Vouchers, when offered, are entered as a code at the final checkout screen and zero out the balance.
There is no fee waiver program for the TEAS itself. ATI does occasionally run discount codes around major nursing-school application deadlines (typically January and August), but they are unreliable. Do not delay your registration waiting for a code — the calendar of available dates is more valuable than ten dollars off. If money is tight, prioritize school-administered sessions or programs that pre-purchase vouchers, and lean on free resources like a TEAS reading practice test rather than paid prep packages.
Online proctored scores post to your ATI dashboard within 48 hours, usually overnight. PSI center scores appear the same day if the center uploads results on time, but it can take up to 72 hours during high-volume weeks (January and August again). School-administered sessions are the fastest — most programs see results inside their internal dashboard the moment you click Submit on the last question.
What the school sees is your composite score, your individual section scores (Reading, Math, Science, English & Language Usage), your national percentile rank, and your program-cohort percentile if the school has subscribed to that comparison. They do not see how long you took on each question, which questions you missed, or whether you used breaks at PSI. ATI does, however, share the full item-level analytics with the nursing school if the school requests them under its institutional contract — most do not bother, but a few competitive programs use the data to compare candidates with identical composite scores.
You can order additional transcripts at any time, including years later. Scores never expire on ATI's side, but most nursing programs only accept TEAS results from the past two or three years. Always check the receiving school's currency rule before paying for a transcript on an old attempt. If you have multiple attempts on file, ATI sends every one of them by default unless the receiving institution has specifically opted into "highest composite only" reporting, which a small minority does.
If you spot an obvious mistake — a missing section score, a wrong school name — open a support ticket within 14 days. ATI rarely revises a score, but it will fix delivery errors. Don't wait. Resolving a transcript dispute close to a nursing application deadline is brutal.
Life happens, and the TEAS reschedule policy is more forgiving than most exams of this caliber — but only if you act early. The rule is simple: rescheduling at least 24 hours before your scheduled start time is free for online proctored, and at least 48 hours for PSI. Inside that window, ATI charges a $35 reschedule fee, and if you miss the appointment entirely (a "no-show"), you forfeit the full $115.
To reschedule, log into ATI, go to your dashboard, find the upcoming session, and click Reschedule. You will land on the same calendar you used to book originally, and any available date within 90 days is fair game. There is no limit to how many times you can reschedule, but each reschedule inside the cutoff window incurs a separate $35 fee. Two late reschedules and you have spent the cost of a whole new attempt.
Cancellation is different. ATI does not refund the TEAS fee under any circumstance except a documented medical emergency or an ATI-side scheduling error. If you cancel outright, the money is gone. Reschedule instead — even if you reschedule to a date six weeks out, you keep the seat and you keep the money.
One quiet exception: if a PSI center cancels your session, ATI rebooks you at no charge. Save any email from PSI confirming the closure — it is your only proof if the rebooking gets mishandled. Same for online proctored sessions terminated by ProctorU on their end; document with screenshots and open a ticket within 72 hours.
Most nursing programs publish a hard application deadline — January 15 and August 1 are the two most common. Work backward from there. Allow 7 to 14 days for your TEAS scores to post and reach the school via transcript. Allow another 30 days in case you need a retake. That means your first TEAS attempt should be at least 45 days before the application deadline. For a January 15 cutoff, that puts your first test no later than December 1; ideally November 15 so you have wiggle room for weather, illness, or a bad result.
Registering too early has its own risks. ATI's calendar opens about 90 days out, and the prime seats in metro areas (Saturday mornings, weekday evenings) fill within the first 48 hours of release. If you wait until the week before your target date, you may be stuck driving to a PSI center two cities over, or forced into a Sunday morning slot you cannot make. The sweet spot is to register the moment you finish a full TEAS practice test at or above the score your school requires.
If you are still 6+ months from your deadline, do not register yet. ATI seats open 90 days out, and registering earlier than that just means you are sitting on a confirmation with no calendar entry. Use the time to finish your prep, take at least two timed full-length practice tests, and confirm you can hit your target score with a buffer of at least three points. Then book.
Registration is the easiest part of the TEAS journey once you understand the structure. Create the ATI account, attach your program, pick the delivery format, book at least 45 days before your deadline, and keep the receipt. Everything else is calendar management.
The most common registration mistake is emotional. Candidates wait because they are not ready, then they keep not being ready, and suddenly the deadline is three weeks away with no seats left. Register first. Once the $115 is gone and the date is on the calendar, study time appears.
The second most common mistake is forgetting transcripts. You can be the strongest applicant in your cohort with a 92 composite and still get rejected from a program because your scores never arrived. Order every transcript the moment your score posts, not the week before the deadline. ATI's transcript service is fast but not instant; allow 7 business days.
Registration handled correctly turns the TEAS from a logistical headache into what it should always have been — a measurable, beatable exam.