Starting in 2024, the SAT will be fully digital. You can expect a shorter test that is conducted entirely on a computer. What does that mean for the future of the test and students preparing for it? We'll break it down for you here.
The first students to take the digital SAT will be international students taking the SAT in March of 2023. International testing centers will debut the new version, and PSAT students will follow with a digital version of that test in the fall of 2023. By springtime 2024, all U.S. schools will transition to the fully digital SAT Suite of Assessments, including the PSAT and SAT. This means that, for students who are on a normal testing timeline and looking to take the SAT during the spring of their junior year, the class of 2025 will be the first class to take the new digital SAT.
So why now? In short, Covid accelerated the need for digital testing. The cancellation of test dates in 2020 and the transition to learning online for students influenced College Board's decision to make the change. Going digital allows for more flexibility with when and where students can test, which provides more opportunities for students in rural and low-income areas. Schools that offer the test on an SAT School Day (which have shown to be an important resource for students who otherwise would not test) have much more flexibility on when to offer testing, allowing for more student opportunity to test and in turn, get into college. The biggest point to focus on with this change is that the SAT will still be, essentially, the same test. Its purpose will still be to measure college readiness in students, the formatting will just be a little different. It will still test the basic skills you should have developed in high school like algebra, grammar, and reading comprehension to determine how you compare to other students, and how ready you are for college. We'll go over the new formatting in a bit, but first let's go over what will look the same on the digital SAT.
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