College Board was founded in 1899 in New York. Today, their mission is to drive students to connect and lead them to colleges and their success. They provide a whole variety of things that will allow students many opportunities when they start applying to colleges, such as AP courses, AP tests, and the Scholastic Assessment Test.
The SAT is one of the tests that high schoolers have to go through, which is now considered *optional* for college admission. This is a paper and pencil exam that tests high schoolers on their math, reading, and writing skills.
The SAT score provides a range of where students are supposed to be, or what they can do to improve their skills further. This gives colleges and universities an idea of where you are, and where you stand in academics.
Recently, College Board announced that the SAT will become a digital-only exam. After they temporarily administered the SAT as a digital version during the pandemic, College Board found that students have a hard and stressful time when it comes to paper and pencil tests. The new digital version of the SAT provides students with easier access, making the exam easier to take. This gives students the full opportunity and advantage to provide information for their colleges of choice.
This digital option will not be available for the Classes of 2022, 2023, or 2024 in the US, but it will first be available for the Class of 2025, who can start taking it in 2024. Internationally, students can begin taking the SAT digitally starting in 2023.
This digital SAT is a shorter version of the traditional test. Instead of the three hours given to students to take the paper and pencil test, the digital test will be shortened to two hours, including more time available for each question.
The questions on the digital test, as College Board said, will “have more variety and reflect a wide range of topics that represent the works students read in college.” Along with the whole change to the test, the results of the SAT will be released within days instead of weeks.
On the other hand, the digital SAT could set some drawbacks for other kids. One may think that they aren’t cut out for the digital SAT and may still step back and make a decision not to take it. Due to the number of questions on the test, it could set the test at a higher standard for having it digitally and most kids will still find the stressful factor throughout the exam.
The final advantage to the digital test is that students will find it easier to navigate through the test rather than with paper and pencil. Students today are attached to their phones and computers, so this will help them see the test easier than looking at a paper that is required to bubble in answers on a scantron.
However, the only thing that College Board won’t change is the scoring of the SAT, which will still be based on a 1600-point scale. But this version of the test will still give students the option to show what they can do academically, so by the time they reach their senior year, colleges will be able to give them scholarship opportunities.
However, recently and throughout the pandemic, the UC’s and California State Universities had become test blind, due to the stress factor of the SAT and ACT and the number of students who decide not to take it. Those who made this decision, and had a 4.0 GPA, lowered their chances of getting into a 4-year university.
In May of 2020, the University of California dropped the SAT and ACT as a requirement for their admissions process. Recently, California State University followed this example and made the decision to drop their test requirements as well. The CSU chancellor stated, “We are eliminating our reliance on a high-stress, high-stakes test that has shown negligible benefit and providing our applicants with greater opportunities to demonstrate their drive, talents, and potential for college success.”
So what does this mean for College Board? Are students still going to take the SAT and ACT after they hear it’s been dropped from the requirements? Is it still going to be a useful thing to take? We’ll just wait and see.
