The College Board announced some significant changes to the SAT today. If you are a high school junior or sophomore, no need to worry. These changes won’t be rolled out until after you’ve applied to college. However, current freshmen will need to get ready for something new!
Starting in the spring of 2024, the SAT will be offered to all students in a new, digital format. Students will take the test at school or in a testing center on a laptop computer. Furthermore, the test will be adaptive, meaning that how well you did on the first module of the test will influence what questions you get in the second module.
Other changes that will be rolled out with the new SAT:
- Reading passages will be much shorter than what they are today. The plan is to have only one question per passage, as compared to the current 10-12 questions per passage.
- Students will be allowed to use a calculator on every math question. You can bring your own calculator or use the one incorporated in the testing platform.
- Students will get more time per question and longer breaks.
- Students will get more flexibility as to which time and day they take the test.
- The full test will take 2 hours, including breaks. Today’s paper and pencil SAT takes just over 3 hours.
Things that will stay the same:
- The test will still be scored out of 1600 points. Scores on the old test and on the new, digital test should be directly comparable.
- The SAT will still assess the fundamental math, reading, and writing skills needed for college success.
- Accommodations, such as extended time or a large print format, will still be offered on the digital test for students who qualify for them.
- It is expected that many, if not most, colleges will continue their test-optional policies. This means that students only need to share their SAT scores with colleges if those scores are strong enough to help their applications.
- Students can still choose between the SAT and ACT. As of now, the ACT has not published any plans to go fully digital.
Some other things you might want to know:
- The digital SAT will be offered to international students even earlier than it is offered in the US. International testing sites will change to the digital SAT in March of 2023.
- The PSAT will also be going digital, starting in the fall of 2023. This means that current high school freshmen will be taking a digital PSAT to prep for their digital SAT.
- The College Board has thought carefully about how to make the digital test as secure as possible. There won’t be any at-home testing (like there was for the pandemic-era AP exams) and students working in the same room will have different test questions.
- The testing platform is also designed so that if loses power or wifi connectivity during the test, no progress will be lost. Rather, the student can log back in when the technical issues are fixed and continue where they left off.
How Test Prep for Success can help:
Applying to college is stressful enough, and changes to the infamous SAT just add to the anxiety. As the College Board releases new information about their plans and samples of the new test, we at Test Prep for Success will do the research for you. We will make sure to be the experts who can provide you with accurate advice just when you need it. This includes helping you decide whether the SAT or ACT is the better test to take and when you should take it. As a small business, TP4S will be able to adapt our classes and private tutoring services in real-time. We will make sure our students are studying with the most relevant and updated materials, and we will be here to answer any questions that come up along the way.
To get more information:
Read the press release and the FAQ that College Board published today for further details on the changes to the SAT. These documents contain the most accurate information on the new test since they come directly from the test maker. If you have questions about how these changes apply to you, contact us at info@worldclasstutoring.com. If you are a current 10th, 11th, or 12th grader, check out our packages and prices or start studying right now with our library of free practice materials.
