“I like the desire on the part of the exam to assess students’ analytic skills, and the direction they’re taking with the changes in the essay,” said Christoph Guttentag, Duke University’s admissions director. “But we’ll still have to examine the evidence to see if there’s any change in the predictive validity within our context.”

David Coleman, who is president and chief executive of the College Board, and spearheaded the process of revising the test, was a key architect of the Common Core state curriculum standards for schools, a set of guidelines being introduced — and often stirring controversy — in classrooms throughout the nation. And to some extent, the College Board’s vision of the new SAT continues that alignment.

William Dingledine, an educational consultant in Greenville, S.C., said, “It’s a positive step that they’re trying to align the test with what students should be learning in school, and what they need for college, since the current SAT doesn’t do that very well, but it’s going to be interesting to see the SAT align with the Common Core standards while there are lots of states now trying to get rid of the Common Core.”

Many college admissions officers expressed skepticism about the College Board’s claim that the new SAT would narrow the gap between rich and poor students’ scores, and eliminate the edge gained through test preparation courses. Nor do they expect that the new test will hold any less stress for students.

Even if everyone becomes familiar with the format, said Jim Rawlins, director of admissions at the University of Oregon, “there’s still going to be a lot of anxiety, since it’s still a high-stakes test.”

So what will be the effects of the new SAT?

“It’s like that SAT response: ‘cannot be determined with the information given,’ ” he said.