Elizabeth Boruff ‘23 | Kat Barber ‘23
The College Board officially announced in January that the SAT is being altered to adapt to the diverse needs of students and for the test to be “easier to take, easier to give, and more relevant,” according to Priscilla Rodriguez, Vice President of College Readiness Assessments at the College Board. Becoming available in 2024, the new SAT will be shorter, digital, and many of the individual sections will be different.
Photo courtesy of co.chalkbeat.org
The current version of the SAT has not been changed since 2010 and is a completely standardized, in-person exam, lasting approximately three hours and 15 minutes. It has a reading section, a writing section, and two math sections, with one that allows the use of a calculator and one that does not.
The College Board has stated that the SAT changes are aimed at making the test more accessible and accommodating for all students, regardless of their educational background. It will be two hours in length rather than the traditional three-plus hours in order to ease the burden of long tests on students and decrease the amount of time that they would have to study for the test.
Currently, many students, regardless of whether they decide to take the SAT or the ACT, spend hours preparing for the exams and often take them more than once. “Taking the ACT has taken so much time out of my life,” Amelia Wondrasch ‘23 explains. “Over the past summer, ACT prep would take me seven or eight hours a week which doesn’t seem like much but in the summer when I’m supposed to be relaxing it felt like a lot. During the year, it’s tough balancing both ACT prep and homework. The time I could be taking a break from my homework I’m spending doing ACT work, and it’s really draining.”
Other members of the community agree that a shortened test will be easier on students. Lara Grieco, Associate Director of College Counseling, says, “Anytime that a student gets to spend less time on standardized testing, we consider that a win.” Emily Staid ‘22, who took the SAT in the 2020-2021 school year, adds, “I think it will be very nice for the younger students to have a shorter SAT, but I am envious that they get to take a shorter test.”
The new SAT will also be completely digital due to research and positive responses after the November 2021 SAT, which was online because of COVID restrictions. The new digital format allows a unique test to be administered to each student, which would prevent cheating.
Some students feel that unique tests are actually unfair. Pepper Claytor ‘23 comments, “If everyone has the same test, you can get a relatively accurate idea of how you compare to other students. With different questions, you might do poorly on your test but could have scored higher if you had someone else’s test, which seems wrong.”
The new SAT questions themselves will change slightly compared to current ones. For example, instead of students reading full passages, the reading analysis section will be shortened with one question per presented passage, which will be shorter. Additionally, both math sections will now allow calculators.
As of now, the college counseling office is unsure of how this new SAT will impact the college admissions process for the class of 2024 and younger. Mariana Ramirez, Associate Director of College Counseling, says, “The College Board seldom checks with the colleges on what the colleges are going to accept, so could the new test potentially benefit students? Maybe, but we have no idea what kind of buy-in the colleges are going to put into a new SAT.”