A shorter and online version of the SAT college admission exam debuted Saturday, and the College Board — the company behind the test — has already declared the switch from the longer, paper version a success.
More than 200,000 students took the digital SAT at 3,000 test centers in 173 countries. Of those test takers, 99.8% successfully completed the exam and submitted their results through the College Board’s new digital testing app Bluebook.
Collectively, more than 400,000 students last week took the digital PSAT 10, which is taken by 10th graders, and PSAT 8/9, which is for 8th and 9th graders.
The digital SAT is shorter, clocking in at just over two hours, compared to three hours for the former paper and pencil test. For the new version, students may use their own computers or school-issued devices, or they can borrow a device from the College Board.
The new test has shorter passages for the reading and writing sections, and students can bring their own calculator or use a built-in graphing calculator.
"Our goal was to provide a testing experience that is more relevant to today’s students and is less stressful for students to take and easier for educators to administer,” Priscilla Rodriguez, senior vice president of College Readiness Assessments at College Board, said in a Tuesday statement.
The statement also said the SAT plays "a vital role in a holistic admissions process" and that the test scores "can confirm a student’s grades or demonstrate their strengths beyond what their high school grades may show."
However, FairTest, a group that advocates for limited application of entrance exams, criticizes the updated test as being more cost effective for the College Board to deliver and score, while not solving certain challenges for schools, counselors or students. Specifically, FairTest raised concerns about gender, race and income disparities among test takers.
"The digital SAT still creates burdens on counselors and schools to provide free labor to the College Board. The digital SAT is still susceptible to test preparation," FairTest's website said.
The new digital option comes as institutions like Yale University and Dartmouth College are reinstating standardized test requirements. Some colleges had begun shifting to test-optional policies prior to the pandemic as a means of increasing the size and diversity of applicant pools by placing more emphasis on strengths that can’t be showcased in a test. But the onset of COVID-19 accelerated the movement when testing sites had to shut down for health and safety reasons.
For fall 2025, more than 1,800 universities including Cornell, Columbia and Harvard won’t require the SAT or ACT, according to FairTest.
