Note: When this blog post was originally published, official College Board policy did not indicate that Superscoring would be allowed between the paper SAT and the Digital SAT. The post has since been updated to reflect more recent statements by the College Board indicating that Superscoring across the two tests CAN be permitted by individual colleges.
Are you or someone you know a current Sophomore (i.e. member of the class of 2025) AND a resident of the USA or its territories?
You are? (Or a friend of yours is?)
Great! Please drop everything you’re doing right now and read this article.
Believe me: I am usually NOT the frantic type of test prep expert—in fact, if you’ve been in my Ivy Lounge Test Prep® universe at all, you’d know that I’m the calm, collected Queen of Test Prep chill.
However, what I’m about to say is truly time sensitive, and I’d be doing YOU a real disservice to not whip you into action (if you haven’t already done so). So treat this like a public service announcement of sorts (and forward this article to anyone and everyone you know who fits this description).
See, normally, I wouldn’t necessarily advise Sophomores to start their SAT or ACT test prep yet…however, your class—and your class only!—needs to do something different from your upperclassmen friends: you need to start your test prep RIGHT NOW, in early May, if you haven’t already. Or at least, you need to take the first step of your test prep journey—i.e. figuring out which test to take in the first place—right now.
Current U.S. Sophomores’ Unique Test Prep Situation
As you may (or may not!) know, the current, paper version of the SAT is being phased out. Currently, it is still being administered in the USA and its territories through the December 2023 test date.
After that (specifically, as of March of 2024), the paper SAT will be replaced entirely by the Digital SAT (or dSAT), which is a completely different test, administered in a completely different way. Here’s everything you need to know about the new, Digital SAT.
How the Digital SAT Affects Americans in the Class of 2025 the Most
In short, the time ranges during which each version of the SAT is offered don’t line up with the typical test prep timeline for U.S. Sophomores. Let me explain:
For YOU—i.e. members of the class of 2025 in the USA or its territories—the current, paper version of the SAT will be administered only during the Spring semester of your Sophomore year and the Fall semester of your Junior year. Then it’s finito, forever, for that version of the test.
Also for YOU, the new, Digital SAT will be administered only during the Spring semester of your Junior year and the Fall semester of your Senior year.
Here’s why this matters so much:
The paper SAT and Digital SAT are entirely different tests. It’s not like “going paperless” with your cellphone bill. The question types, formatting, and section structures are totally different.
Although the College Board has recently indicated that Superscoring between the two versions of the test WILL be possible, the decision as to whether to permit this will be left up to individual colleges. Meaning: some of the schools on your list might allow you to Superscore two versions of the test, but not all of them may.
3. Furthermore, even if all of the colleges on your list allow Superscoring, you’d still need to study for and take the two fairly different versions of the test: the paper SAT by December, and the Digital SAT afterwards. Needless to say, this is not the most efficient way to go about test prep!
Thus, if you’re opting for the SAT over the ACT, you need to have either completely FINISHED all your test prep by December of Junior year…OR you can’t even START your first attempts of the SAT until Spring of Junior year…if you want to avoid learning and prepping for two different tests.
This presents a bit of a conundrum.
See, I usually advise students to start prepping for the SAT/ACT right before Junior year of high school begins, and then to start taking their first attempts of the test either Spring of Junior year…or, if they’re more advanced, in the Fall of Junior year. Every year, several high schoolers will actually wait until Fall of Junior year to start their test prep, and it tends to work out for them, too.
This is pretty standard practice for your average high schooler with an average schedule and academic aptitude. You assume that most of Junior year will just be spent on SAT/ACT test prep, and that between the Fall and Spring semesters of Junior year, you’ll have enough test sittings to attain the SAT or ACT Superscore you need for your college list. You extend your Testing Timeline into the summer after Junior year (or Senior year Fall) only if you really need to, as backup test dates.
But for my U.S. Sophomores, if you were to take the December 2023 SAT as your first attempt during Junior year, you’d basically have to reach your Target Score in one shot—which very few students do! Why? Because the next testing opportunity would be in March of 2024…which would be the new, Digital SAT, a test you haven’t properly studied for! And you may or may not be able to combine those scores, anyways, depending on the individual Superscore policies of the colleges you’re applying to!
See the problem?
Should the U.S. Class of 2025 just take the ACT instead?
Good question! Yes, it is absolutely an option for you to take the ACT, and thus keep your “all of Junior year” test prep schedule intact. But the thing is, not everyone likes the ACT. In fact, my students who opt for the SAT instead usually do so because they just can’t hack the faster timing and pacing of the ACT. And though expert test prep assistance can help with timing, it can’t always completely fix that issue. If timing is your issue with the ACT (especially in the Reading and Science sections), you’ll be facing an uphill battle that you might not win.
For about half my private 1-on-1 tutoring students, the ACT simply does not play to their strengths: they perform significantly worse on it than they do on the SAT. In that case, you need to pick the easier path—i.e. the right test—to attaining your Target Score.
Why can’t Americans in the Class of 2025 just take the Digital SAT in 2024?
If you fall into the large camp of students who can’t quite get the ACT timing to work for them to reach their desired scores—AND if you wait and don’t start your test prep NOW—you definitely WILL be forced to take the Digital SAT as your college admissions test.
If the Digital SAT weren’t completely new, I’d be fine with this.
But for YOUR particular class, you’d be the first in the U.S. to take it. You’d be the guinea pig. You’d be prepping with only four computer-adaptive and four linear Digital SAT practice tests…which have never been administered to real students before. You’d be relying on the scoring rubric of your real test on Test Day to correspond to the practice test scoring rubrics…which they usually don’t at first. You also would be utilizing untested test prep books and resources that haven’t been around for very long at all.
Do you really want such a high stakes score to depend on so many factors out of your control? I know I wouldn’t! And since I’m so invested in getting amazing score improvements for my test prep clients, I wouldn’t want them to, either, unless absolutely necessary!
So, should U.S. Sophomores take the SAT, the dSAT, or the ACT?
That’s exactly it. While a random blog post from the Internet can’t dictate which test you should take, this is the precise question you have to drop everything to figure out. RIGHT NOW.
The U.S. members of the Class of 2025 have to figure out WHICH test to take RIGHT NOW…
…because *if* you’ll perform significantly better on the current, paper version of the SAT, you have to actually start your test prep immediately! You likely wouldn’t have enough time to prep for the June 3rd test date, but you’d still have four more possible test sittings to attain your Target Score:
August 26, 2023
October 7, 2023
November 4, 2023, and
December 2, 2023
…and *if* you’re better off with the ACT, then you’ll breathe a sigh of relief and know that you don’t have to finish your testing by the end of 2023! You’ll actually have all of Junior year if you desire to work on your ACT prep and not feel so rushed.
But you won’t know this until you actually start the test prep process and figure out which test is right for YOU in the first place.
What if I want to take the SAT but can’t finish test prep by December of Junior year?
To this, I have two things to say:
If you have a proper test prep plan—like the ones I create with my private clients in our Ace the Test: Game Plan™ session—you might discover that four SAT test sittings is ample opportunity to achieve your dream score…especially because so many types of questions on the current SAT are surprisingly “tutor-able” with the proper strategies.
If you still are convinced that there’s absolutely NO WAY you could learn everything in time—and you’ve determined you are “allergic” to the ACT—then sure, prep for and take the new, Digital SAT starting Spring of your Junior year. You may well fall into the one category of high schooler who might benefit from taking the gamble on a completely new test. After all, if there’s no better option for you, then there’s no better option for you.
How to Choose Between the SAT, ACT and the Digital SAT
Luckily, because so many students in the U.S. Class of 2025 and their parents are having trouble navigating this unique testing landscape, I just finished creating a complete free online quiz. You can take the quiz here:
The beautiful thing is that after you finish the quiz, you’ll get a few emails that walk you through ALL the considerations and factors that will help you choose once and for all among the three tests!
So, if you haven’t already, take the quiz yourself, and if you have classmates who need to get cracking so they don’t miss the window of paper SAT opportunity, please forward this article to them!
