Going Digital: Why a Digital SAT is Beneficial to High Schoolers

Sophomores and juniors across the country, including us here at Hanover High School, recently took the digital PSAT for the first time. However, the fancy, brand-new, digital test ran into issues—some test rooms even started the test 90 minutes after the original starting time. We complained, we struggled, and we stressed, but eventually, everyone finished the two-hour assessment and enjoyed the rest of their Wednesday. 

  College Board’s digital shift in both the SAT and PSAT has been going well over a year now, and in March 2024, the SAT will be fully digitalized like this year’s PSAT. Despite the technological scare we HHS students had, the Hanover High School community, as well as other high schools across the country, should be encouraged by the new change from paper to digital national assessments.

To be clear, the SAT didn’t turn digital out of nowhere. A few different factors have led to the College Board making the decision to go digital. For one, the changes to the SAT are at least partially due to the lack of students taking the current SAT. The nationwide assessment has become less and less popular over the last 3 years. With more colleges being “test optional” in their applications, as well as the impact on education the COVID-19 pandemic has had on schools worldwide, students have had less of a need or motive to take the SAT. The new digital test will try to encourage students to take the SAT and add it to their college application. Says Priscilla Rodriguez, vice president of College Readiness Assessments at College Board, “Submitting a score is optional for every type of college, and we want the SAT to be the best possible option for students”.

On top of that, high schoolers are becoming more and more immersed in technology, with learning as well as test taking in classes turning digital. College Board states on its website that it wants to “listen to input and adapt to ensure we continue to meet the needs of students and educators”. The new digital SAT will not feel like a different type of test, but rather an assessment similar to the ones all high schoolers are taking during their regular school days (at least, that’s what the College Board hopes).

Lastly, initial feedback from the digital SAT from students has been very positive. According to an article written on the College Board in 2022, 80% of students who took the digital assessment found it to be less stressful.

So, what will this new digital SAT look like, and why should students and teachers be happy about the change? For one, the test will be a lot shorter. This is because the questions will be adaptive, meaning that the test can evaluate a student’s proficiency level more efficiently than before. Instead of 154 questions, there will be 98. Still a lot, but way less than before. The time will also be shortened from over three hours to just over two hours. Adaptive questions also mean that average scores should go up. If a student is struggling initially with questions, the test will get easier, bringing up scores that previously would have been lower. 

The reading section in particular will be a lot shorter. Instead of long passages, each question will be accompanied by a short excerpt, letting students spend more time on each question. 

Making the SAT digital also makes the test easier to administer and retake, given that schools and students have access to computers. As said by the College Board, “going digital allows us to offer much more flexibility in terms of when, where, and how often the SAT is given, particularly for states, districts, and schools offering the SAT”. Of course, this is part speculation, as potential issues with administering a digital SAT definitely do exist. But for now, CollegeBoard seems to be stating that a digital approach will be more flexible than the paper SAT.

Finally, a digital SAT is also great for students with learning differences. Making the test digital allows students to be provided with assistive technology, as well as additional accommodations for students who need them. The previously mentioned benefits of the digital SAT, like a shorter test, as well as shorter questions, can be helpful for students with attention challenges like ADHD. The plethora of digital tools that wouldn’t be available on a paper SAT, like text to speech, strikethrough, a digital timer, a calculator, a highlighter, font and color changer, zoom, and others, will help all students better their scores. 

At the end of the day, no matter what the College Board does, the SAT will still always be a stressful time in any high schooler’s life. Still, the new digital SAT will hopefully be able to lessen the struggles everyone has to go through. So, if you decide to take the SAT, take pleasure in knowing that the process just got a little bit less traumatic.