Did you hear? The SAT announced major changes

You may have heard that the College Board, which administers the SAT, has recently announced sweeping changes to the exam. We know well that anything related to the SAT can be a real source of anxiety for students and families preparing to navigate the college admissions process.

With that in mind, here’s what these changes mean for future college applicants:

Who is impacted by the changes?

In the U.S. the high school class of 2025, current 9th graders, are the first who will take both the PSAT and the SAT in its new format. This means high school students in the classes of 2024 and 2023 will not be impacted. Families of 9th grade students and middle school students should continue to keep up with announcements over the next year or two.

Outside of the U.S. the new exam will be given for the first time in 2023. So international students in the class of 2024 should also pay attention to the upcoming changes.

What is changing?

A few key things are changing:

1. The length of the exam:
The exam will be reduced from 3 hours to 2 hours.

2. The use of calculators:
Calculators will now be permitted on all math questions.

3. The length of reading passages:
The new exam will use shorter passages with 1–2 questions.

4. The administration:
The biggest change is that the PSAT and SAT will both be administered as a digital exam to be taken on computers, laptops, or tablets, either the students’ own or one provided to them.

5. The exam will become adaptive:
The digital SAT will be a responsive test.

What does this actually mean?

What we understand is that all students will be given a short set of initial questions that determine the level of challenge of the subsequent questions on the exam. If a student answers these questions correctly, the questions that follow will be somewhat more challenging. This opens up the scoring potential for that student on the exam. If the student answers those questions incorrectly, the questions will stay the same or get slightly ‘easier,’ and the maximum possible score for the student will be capped if the student is not answering the most challenging questions correctly. Many computer-based standardized tests already operate this way, and the College Board says that this will also help to reduce instances of cheating.

6. Scores will be available sooner:
Students should be able to receive their scores within days instead of the historically weeks-long waiting period.

What isn’t changing?

1. The Score Scale:
The exam will continue to have the same total score of 1600 points.

2. Sections:
The exam will continue to be made up of a Math section (800 possible points) and Evidence Based Reading and Writing section (800 possible points)

3. Accommodations:
The College Board asserts that students who qualify for accommodations will have full access to those accommodations in the new format.

What is still unknown?

Much is still unknown about the updates to the test and its administration. The roll out internationally in 2023 should give us some early indications. More importantly, in a rapidly changing college admissions landscape, it is unclear whether the SAT will be relevant for most students’ admissions processes in the Class of 2025 and beyond. With more colleges announcing the extension of Test Optional Policies and the University of California system eliminating the consideration of the SAT and ACT from its process, much is uncertain about the role testing will play in admissions. We will continue to closely monitor and share with you forthcoming information from the College Board and colleges and universities, who really set the priorities for the process.

In the meantime, we continue to encourage all students to plan to take either the SAT or the ACT a couple of times in your process, as students with competitive scores continue to see an admissions advantage at colleges that provide the option of submitting those scores. If that recommendation changes, you’ll be the first to know!

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