The College Board recently announced that starting in the spring of 2024, the SAT will be transitioning to a fully digital format, administered through the app Bluebook. The change will offer a more accessible, low-stress method of evaluating students’ preparedness for college.
The new SAT, which has already been in use across the world since early 2023, can be taken on desktops, computers, and iPads. However, the test will not be offered remotely but administered in schools and testing centers with a $60 registration fee.
So what exactly is the digital SAT, and how does it differ from the current version?
The first major change is the length and structure of the test. While the paper SAT lasts three hours, the digital version will take just over two hours, divided into two English sections for a total of 54 questions in 68 minutes and two Math sections for a total of 44 questions in 70 minutes. The Reading and Writing sections, instead of 500-750-word passages with 10-11 questions accompanying them, will contain 25-150-word passages. Moreover, both Math sections will now allow the use of a graphing calculator built into the Bluebook system. The exam will still be scored on a scale of 400-1600.
Perhaps the most important difference is that the new SAT will be adaptive. In a nutshell, this means that, if you perform under a given threshold in one section of the test, you will be given slightly easier questions in the next section. Accordingly, if you ace the first section, you will be given hard questions in the next. Under the new system, certain questions will be given more weight based on difficulty, so the only way to get a perfect score is to ace the first section, be given the hardest possible questions in the next, and get them all right.
Fieldston Director of College Counseling Jameel Freeman expressed uncertainty about how the new format will affect students and the college process. “I think the change to a digital format could be good, as the test will be shorter and a digital format is what many students are used to in their classes,” he said, “[but] because the digital SAT won’t roll out in the US until next spring… there isn’t enough data to support how it will affect students.” He added that digital scores are expected to mirror those of the paper-based SAT and that test-optional policies, which allow students to decide whether or not to submit standardized test scores without hindering their chances of admission, should not be affected by the redesign of the SAT.
The ACT recently announced plans to follow suit, piloting an online version of the exam this year. The digitalization of the SAT and ACT are reflective of the ever-evolving implications of standardized testing to the college admissions process, and it will be interesting to see how colleges adapt to the new formats.
