About
I’m a Harvard graduate who has worked for 17 years as a professional private tutor of SAT/ACT, Advanced Placement Exams, and College Admissions.
Over my career I have helped some 750 bright young people—all one-on-one—take their high school exams, compose their college entrance essays, and feel passionate about their futures.
I love my job and take pride in my work. I draw from the energy and positivity of diligent students just as they draw from my experience and enthusiasm for teaching. I keep in touch with students many years after instruction and am thrilled to see their success in university and beyond.
I always offer a free short consultation about the testing and admissions process.
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DIGITAL SAT (&PSAT)
Class of 2025 will take the new digital PSAT in the fall of 2023 and then the digital SAT beginning in the spring of 2024. (The final sittings of the classic SAT will be 11/4/23 and 12/2/23.)
The digital PSAT/SAT, at 2:24, is significant shorter. It’s also adaptive, meaning that performance on earlier sections changes the content of later sections.
Reading and Writing (formerly Sec1 and Sec2 of the classic SAT) are combined into a single area. Long reading passages are eliminated and replaced with single-paragraph prompts that test comprehension, logical communication, vocabulary, and phrasing.
The NoCalc and Calc Math (Sec3 and Sec4 of the classic SAT) are combined into a single area. The Desmos calculator is integrated into the new digital SAT and available throughout both Math sections.
This webinar below provides excellent details.
In my opinion, the purpose of digital SAT’s adaptive feature will be to allow highly selective universities to more finely differentiate between people at the very top of the testing scale. By steering someone who gets the first few difficult questions correct toward a much harder test, you will be able to tell the superstars from the stars. The best testers will be doing questions that are multiple echelons beyond what the more average testers are. (The GRE, which is the graduate school exam in the United States, has already been using this adaptive technology for years.) Note that the effective outcome of the new digital SAT is the exact opposite of what the College Board will say. The practical purpose is to be hyper-selective at the top end, even though the College Board will publicly state that it’s trying to be more fair.
What will be the outcome of the new digital SAT? My guess would be in the long run not a whole lot. People in the top 10% of candidates will still need study like crazy and compete for the best scores. I’ve already tutored through multiple overhauls of the SAT format, and the overall process and content hasn’t changed much. In the short run, however, the new digital SAT will create confusion and maybe even turn people away. Students won’t want to be the “lab rats” for the first rollout of a new program. No one will have updated prep materials, or detailed feedback about the experience of the digital SAT, for a year or two. Many students will likely avoid the confusion entirely by taking the ACT instead, for which there are tons of real practice tests and the format is very well established.