Can The SAT Going Digital Make It Relevant Again?

The College Board announced that by 2024 the SAT will be "retooled" to be taken entirely digitally and shortened. In surveys, student report that the changes would make taking the test significantly less stressful. It has also become less of a necessity to take it in the first place. As more schools decide to go test-optional, the real question is whether these planned changes will be enough to save the SAT.

In our recent experience, exactly zero of the 14 colleges that my son applied to this past Fall required the SAT. High school students taking the test have declined over the past two years by more than 25%. Yet there will always be a desire among admissions officers (and perhaps students themselves) to have a standardized metric through which they can judge their achievements against all other students. Only some sort of standardized test can do that.

That alone will likely lead to a middle ground over time that everyone can embrace where the SAT is optional for all, only submitted by those who performed well on it, and treated as only one small part of the overall evaluation process for a prospective student instead of as the future-defining number it once was. In a world like that, having the SAT might not be so bad.