Changes Ahead For The SAT (Again)

On January 25, the College Board announced a series of changes to the SAT under the headline that proclaimed, “Digital SAT Brings Student-Friendly Changes to the Test Experience.” Among the “student-friendly” changes are the following:

A digital SAT to replace the familiar paper-based test. Digital exams will begin in 2023 in test centers outside the US and by the spring of 2024 here in the US.
Students will take the SAT on a laptop or tablet, using a custom-built digital exam application that they’ll download in advance of test day.
The digital SAT will be shorter—about two hours instead of three for the current SAT, with more time per question.
Each section (Reading and Writing, Math) will be divided into two parts called modules. Students answer a set of questions in the first module before moving on to the next. The questions that students are given in the second module depend on how they performed on the first module.
Students will be able to practice with the new digital adaptive format starting this fall.
The digital test will feature shorter reading passages with one question tied to each, and passages will reflect a wider range of topics that represent the works students read in college.
Calculators will be allowed on the entire Math section.
The digital SAT will continue to be scored on the 1600-point scale and students can expect to get their scores back in days, not weeks

A SIGN OF THE TIMES

In one sense, this transition to digital makes sense and from a purely logistical standpoint, it’s easy to see that this will simplify the entire testing process for students and school personnel who administer the SAT. The ACT has been offering a digital version of its test to those outside the US and plans to introduce the digital version to students in the US. We do, however, see a potential pitfall for students with the adaptive testing approach. A careless error early on in the test would lead to easier questions in the subsequent modules, meaning your scores will be lower right off the bat. It doesn’t seem fair to limit your score early on with a basic error. In the current SAT, all questions are weighted the same so it does not matter if you miss hard ones or easy ones. In the adaptive SAT, missing easy ones would have a disproportionate negative effect.

Another potential issue – though the College Board is selling this as a way to cut back on test fraud—is that if students are allowed to use their own laptops, it would be easy to have another student take a proxy test or cheat using online tools.

On the other hand, this announcement comes at a time when we’ve seen an explosion in test-optional admissions processes at colleges and universities across the country, the result of pandemic-era disruptions to that annual rite of passage for so many college-bound students. As we’ve written before, the decision by the entire University of California system to eliminate standardized testing from its admissions process and Harvard’s recently announced decision to extend their test-optional policies for four more years could foreshadow similar actions by other top schools.

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CURRENT HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMEN: MAKING THE SWITCH

If you are currently a sophomore or junior in high school and live in the US, these changes won’t impact your SAT preparation. Students currently in their first year of high school will be the first cohort to make the switch to the digital platform. All students will take the digital PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10, and PSAT/NMSQT starting in fall 2023. The College Board will make available free practice resources on Khan Academy and full-length practice tests on the digital testing application starting in the fall of 2022.

AT A CROSSROADS

Although the pandemic has necessitated a major shift in the process of selecting students, the fact remains that standardized testing – for all its well-documented flaws and limitations – still provides admissions officers with additional data points to help them quickly sort through inflated applicant pools with large numbers of students from the same high schools where grade inflation runs rampant. In its materials, the College Board cited that the share of students graduating from high school with an A average has grown from 39% in 1998 to 55% in 2021. That’s why, even in the current test-optional paradigm, test scores (perhaps AP scores even more than the SAT or ACT) continue to matter. How else could NYU or USC, each with applicant pools over 100,000, or for that matter, even smaller schools who have seen their application volume more than double (Colgate) during the pandemic efficiently tackle the volume of applications that need to be read and decided upon in the course of a few months?

Over the next few admissions cycles, we hope that college and university admissions leaders speak with more clarity and transparency about the role of testing – especially in a test optional environment. The Common App’s own data offer interesting insights on testing patterns that undercut a truly ‘test optional’ process for some applicants. Among their findings:

Overall, 40% of applicants reported a test score in an application this season. The rate fell from 73% in 2019–20 and 70% in 2018–19.
First-generation and underrepresented minority (URM) applicants were less likely to report test scores than non-first-generation and non-URM applicants. Their rates of reporting also declined at sharper rates relative to 2019–20.
More selective member institutions, both public and private, more often received test scores with applications than did less selective colleges.

These data – plus the continued reliance on mean and median SAT/ACT data to underscore the strength of the cohorts admitted to particular schools—certainly strengthen the perception that testing continues to be a factor in the admissions process for some applicants, primarily White and Asian students from well-resourced schools and communities, but not others. Obviously, a great deal can change in the span of a year or two, but until more colleges move in the direction of the University of California, we continue to foresee confusing and contradictory messaging on the role of testing in a selective admissions process.

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Maria Laskaris

Senior Private Counselor at Top Tier Admissions

Maria Laskaris joins Top Tier Admissions as one of the most experienced admissions deans in the country. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 1984, and served as Director of Admissions at Dartmouth for over a decade where she evaluated tens of thousands of applicants. From 2007-2015 she served as the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Dartmouth, overseeing all facets of the admissions and financial aid processes. She played an integral role in developing key enhancements to the Common Application, serving on the 14-member Board of Directors. With over 25 years of admissions experience at one of the most selective colleges in the country, she provides an insider’s perspective like no other, with deep knowledge of selective college admissions.

In addition, Maria is proud of her long-term volunteer work with Opera North (Lebanon, NH) in fundraising, marketing and audience engagement. She is an avid masters rower with the Upper Valley Rowing Foundation (Hanover, NH) and also serves as a member of its board of directors.

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