Imagine sitting down to take the biggest test of your life and the only material you receive is a piece of scrap paper. A scantron? Gone. A pencil? Optional. Paper? Optional. A physical test? Replaced by a computer application. This has quickly become the reality for millions of high school students across the country.

In 2023, nearly 80% of college admission tests were administered digitally, marking a dramatic shift from just a decade ago when paper-based assessments dominated the admissions landscape. As institutions rapidly embrace this trend, students are finding themselves navigating a new era of test-taking that promises both innovation and uncertainty.

Institutions and educational firms are already taking radical steps towards this transformation. The College Board, for example, recently moved the SAT exam fully online, with the last paper option for an SAT occurring in December of 2023. In 2024, All Advanced Placement exams will have an online segment for multiple choice questions. Some are even fully digitized. Starting in 2024, the ACT will also only be available to take online.

Before this switch, the SAT had experienced a few shaky years. Disrupted by the pandemic, many colleges deemed the SAT unnecessary for admissions and consequently removed it as a requirement for admissions. In fact, Janet Napolitano, then-President of the University of California, made a statement that the college would be “removing the ACT/SAT requirement for California students and developing a new test that more closely aligns with what we expect incoming students to know.” Nonetheless, colleges such as Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton have since reinstated the SAT as a requirement application, reflecting a broader trend among elite institutions reconsidering their admissions policies with the introduction of the new SAT. There has been a fundamental change in how students and educators prepare for exams – but is it for the best?

Advocates for this change contend that it will yield long-term advantages for students. For one, many new standardized tests follow an adaptive format. It makes it so that well performing students are granted harder questions, and lower performing students are granted easier questions to compensate for discrepancy in the skill level of students. This approach is expected to level the playing field for students from all across the world who have had access to different levels of preparation for the test. 

Additionally, many of these newly digitized tests such as the SAT are consequently becoming shorter. The duration of the SAT, for example, has been reduced from 3 hours and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 14 minutes, making it a full hour shorter.  “Everybody kind of likes that,” said SAT prep tutor Alan Reed, who has been tutoring students taking the test for over a decade. When asking his students about the change (including this reporter), Reed told me that despite his students’ mixed opinions regarding this change, one consensus is that a shorter, more efficient test is easier and less stressful. 

The digital SAT is also expected to reduce the logical issues involved in paper based tests such as printing out papers, manually grading, and proctoring the same test to a room of students, as well as provide greater flexibility. Since the exams are now online, they can be administered more frequently, allowing students to take the test on multiple dates rather than being restricted to just a few times a year. 

On the contrary, there has been significant opposition to this shift.

Admissions already favors privileged high income students that have access to the specific type of preparations needed to do well on standardized tests. A reporter at Forbes found that:

• Students with family income of $100,000 or more are more than twice as likely as students with family income under $50,000 to have combined SAT test scores of 1400 to 1600. 

• White students are three times more likely than Black or African-American students and twice as likely as Hispanic or Latino students to have combined SAT test scores of 1400 to 1600. 

The reporter concluded that given the persistent disparities in test scores among different demographic groups, anticipating incoming students to achieve exceptionally high scores ensures that admissions at selective institutions will be biased toward children from white, Asian, and wealthy backgrounds. As a result, this practice ultimately excludes many academically gifted individuals from historically marginalized groups.

Additionally, a reporter atThe New York Times wrote that approximately one-third of children from the wealthiest families in the United States score 1300 or higher on the SAT. In contrast, less than 5% of middle-class students achieve the same score.

Switching to digital test taking is likely to  worsen this issue, as wealthier families are much more likely to have access to the necessary technology and resources needed to succeed in digital environments. Some of these resources are high-speed internet, updated software, and access to tech-savvy tutors who specialize in digital test prep can cause a significant difference in performance. 

Additionally, many students in disadvantaged socioeconomic statuses do not have access to reliable technology at home or at school, and they will likely have to borrow new devices with which they are potentially unfamiliar. Even in school, access to technology can be uneven, with underfunded districts often struggling to provide enough computers to use them during the school day, or to maintain them. 

This discrepancy in access can exacerbate the digital divide that already exists between high-income and low-income students, making it harder for those in marginalized communities to compete on a level playing field. 

Another concern with digital tests is the potential for technical difficulties during the exam. Students who are not as familiar with using computers or navigating digital platforms may encounter glitches, slow loading times, or connectivity issues that could disrupt their test-taking experience. While organizations such as the College Board claim that they have implemented safeguards to prevent these problems, the reality is that no system is entirely foolproof. Technical issues can introduce an additional layer of stress for students already under pressure to perform well, repudiating the notion that a switch to digital test tweaking will certainly evaporate logistical testing issues.

Moreover, some educators and students argue that digital tests might not fully capture a student’s abilities. Paper-based tests allow for margin notes, scratch work, and the physical experience of flipping through pages that students are familiar with. The transition to a purely digital format may strip away these familiar tools, leaving some students feeling less comfortable and confident during the exam. 

When I asked Frances Auth ’26 who has recently taken the October 2024 SAT, she had mixed feelings. She told me that “having a built in timer was nice,” and that “the test was easy to navigate,” while also recalling that someone in her room had to start the test 30 minutes late and that he module format added extra stress before taking the test, highlighting the dualities of adopting this format and the ambiguous uncertain future of digital test taking

So what comes next?

It is clear that the shift to digital test-taking is a significant step toward modernizing education, yet it raises questions about equity, reliability, and the overall impact on students. As institutions continue to shift toward more digitized tests, it brings up both benefits and concerns. Some argue that it will help fix logistical issues, while others say that it will not. Some people argue that it is shorter, while others argue that it is too complicated. 

There are heavily contrasting views on the subject, but one thing is clear — digital testing is reshaping the future of education and how well we address its challenges will determine its success and fairness for all students.

There are heavily contrasting views on the subject, but one thing is clear — digital testing is reshaping the future of education and how well we address its challenges will determine its success and fairness for all students.