The SAT, a college admissions exam long associated with paper and pencil, will soon go all-digital.
Starting in 2023 for international students and in 2024 in the U.S., the new digital SAT will shrink from three hours to two, include shorter reading passages and allow students to use a calculator on the math section.
Testing will still take place at a test center or at a school, but students will be able to choose between using their own devices — including a tablet or a laptop — or the schools' devices.
"The digital SAT will be easier to take, easier to give, and more relevant," said Priscilla Rodriguez of the College Board, the organization behind the test.
"With input from educators and students, we are adapting to ensure we continue to meet their evolving needs."
The College Board previously scrapped plans to offer an at-home digital test because of concern about students being able to access three hours of uninterrupted internet and power. Student broadband access has been a constant struggle throughout the pandemic, especially in rural and low-income areas. The new SAT will be designed to autosave, so students won't lose work or time while they reconnect.
All this comes as the relevance of the SAT and ACT, another college entrance exam, is being called into question in the college admissions process. More than 1,800 U.S. colleges are not requiring a test score for students applying to enroll in fall 2022, according to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. At least 1,400 of those schools have extended their test policies through at least the fall of 2023. The University of California system, one of the largest in the nation, permanently removed the tests from its admissions process in November, after a drawn-out debate and a lawsuit.
Still, the SAT and ACT are deeply ingrained in the American high school experience. More than a dozen states require one of the exams to graduate, and before the pandemic 10 states and Washington, D.C., had contracts with the College Board to offer the test during the school day for free to their students.
With the college admissions process grabbing headlines, and the Supreme Court agreeing to revisit the use of affirmative action in admissions, the College Board maintains that the SAT plays "a vital role in holistic admissions."
And despite many colleges making the test optional, some students see value in it.
"[The test] definitely doesn't offer the full profile of who a student is, it's not like the missing piece," explains Kirsten Amematsro, a junior at Potomac High School in Dumfries, Va. "But it can make your application better. It just kind of speaks to what you can accomplish in your testing ability."
Amematsro first started thinking about her path to college — and taking the SAT — back in sixth grade. When she got to high school, her mom bought her a poster of a college readiness to-do list that hangs in her bedroom.
"I know that it's going to be a vital part when I apply [to college]," she says. She thinks with so many colleges going test-optional, having a good SAT will be "a cherry on top" of her application.
Last fall, Amematsro took a pilot version of the new digital SAT.
"It felt more streamlined," she says. "It's just not as easy for me, honestly, to focus on the paper as it was the computer."
She used her own laptop to take it, which felt comfortable and familiar.
"I just feel like it's easier for our generation because we're so used to using technology."
Before this new digital format, the SAT had already gone through several changes. In 2014, the College Board revealed it would drop its penalty-for-wrong-answers policy, make the essay portion optional and remove the obscure vocabulary section. And in early 2021, the organization announced it would discontinue the optional essay component of the SAT, as well as the subject tests in U.S. history, languages and math, among other topics.
The SAT exam is ditching paper and pencils to move online and will now be shorter, the College Board revealed on Tuesday.
The upcoming changes, which will be rolled out in the US in 2024, will boost the exam’s relevancy as more colleges make standardized tests optional for admission, according to the administrators.
Those taking the college entrance exam will be allowed to use their own laptops or tablets, but will still have to sit the test at a monitored testing site or school when the changes go into effect, the College Board said.
The new online version will also shave an hour off the current exam time, bringing the reading, writing and math assessment from three hours to roughly two.
“The digital SAT will be easier to take, easier to give, and more relevant,” said Priscilla Rodriguez, vice president of college readiness assessments at the College Board.
“We’re not simply putting the current SAT on a digital platform — we’re taking full advantage of what delivering an assessment digitally makes possible.”
The exam will feature shorter reading passages with one question tied to each, and calculators will be allowed for the entire duration of the math section.
Test-takers will also get their scores back within days — instead of weeks, administrators said.
The format change is scheduled to take effect at international test sites next year and in the US in 2024.
Students who participated in a November pilot of the digital SAT said the experience was less stressful than the current paper-and-pencil test.
“It felt a lot less stressful, and whole lot quicker than I thought it’d be,” said Natalia Cossio, an 11th-grader from Fairfax, Virginia.
“The shorter passages helped me concentrate more on what the question wanted me to do. Plus, you don’t have to remember to bring a calculator or a pencil.”
The College Board said students without a personal or school-issued device would be provided one for test day.
Once essential for college applications, scores from admission tests like the SAT carry less weight today as colleges and universities pay more attention to the sum of student achievements and activities throughout high school.
Amid criticism that the exams favor wealthy, white applicants and disadvantage minority and low-income students, an increasing number of schools have adopted test-optional policies in recent years that allow students to decide whether to include scores with their applications.
Nearly 80 percent of bachelor’s degree-granting institutions are not requiring test scores from students applying for fall 2022, a tally by the National Center for Fair & Open Testing showed.
About 1.5 million members of the Class of 2021 took the SAT at least once, down from 2.2 million in the previous year. A College Board survey found many students want to take the SAT to preserve the option of submitting the scores and qualifying for certain scholarships.
With Post wires