Several months ago the College Board announced changes coming to the SAT. We'll get much more into the weeds later on the specifics when more information is revealed. Our friends at Compass do a decent summary of the "known knowns" here.
The big question is always when to test and this has gotten more complicated with the new digital test being rolled out from March 2023 in international markets. College Board is using international markets as a beta test a new "product' with the digital version not coming out in the States till 2024. College Board did not cover itself with glory with the at-home APs the last few cycles and indeed, it was largely an unreported fiasco. We really can't see it being bug-free by next March. It is just way too compressed a time line for something that hasn't really be done before on anywhere near the same scale. Using a kids' own device is much more challenging technically than taking a TOEFL/ACT/GRE/GMAT at a test center with a bank of dedicated PCs. How many test centers could handle 1500 students accessing the WiFi at the same time?
Hence, we anticipate the March 2023 test to be a bit of a mess with the scoring really "iffy". If it was rolled out in the States at the same time, CB would have many more results to effectively smooth out the scoring to effectively match past versions. As it is, it will just be international so exact scoring will be best guess. In the past the first iterations of new versions of the SAT have skewed hard or easy until CB had enough data to lock things in with equivalency/concordance tables and the like. Smart universities know this and the March 2023 results will likely have a bit of a virtual asterisk next to them as a result.
So, our general advice for current 10th graders (Class of 2024) is to do absolutely nothing SAT-related this academic year. Then, if kids are looking to test - December 3rd. 2022 for most students, and the October 1st, 2022 for the kids in math club who also read Jane Austin for fun. You can use some of the summer for prep and we have summer programs that pause, then resume in the weeks leading to the Oct/Dec test dates.
Better the devil you know.
Then, students can wait until the dust clears with the new test format and test again in August 2023, or even October 2023 (or even December 2023 in most cases) if necessary. But always best to get a good mark the first time around and be done with it. Important that the changes (such that we know now) are more in format/delivery rather than content, so test skills for the old test will translate largely to the new one.
News came out the night before our most recent Webinar and the first 10 minutes or so of the video is our initial "hot take/rant" on things. Those in this silly world have expected this move for some time and we at Testtakers will be ready for the new test when it comes.
