I live in Northern California, but I’m traveling to Texas to take the SAT on Saturday.
This is not due to a lack of planning on my part. I went to the College Board website to register for the June SAT first thing on the first day students could register. But within minutes, every seat in my county and all of Northern California was gone. Registration for the SAT in the Bay Area is as difficult as getting tickets to a Taylor Swift concert.
I’m not the only one in California, I go to the extreme find a place to take a university entrance exam. A mom in my community posted on her Facebook page: “It took two months of effort and three calls to ACT to get a spot over 100 miles away! » Other California families joined the conversation, explaining: “Same thing in SoCal. Last year we had to drive 100 miles for a test at 8am so we stayed overnight…so irritating.
I know the SAT and ACT tests are controversial. I’m not here to debate their existence. The fact is, they still matter, whether we like it or not. For the 2025 college application cycle, only 4% of four-year colleges are test blind, meaning they do not accept test scores. Most schools (87%) are test optional (i.e., preferred tests) and the remaining 9% are required tests. according to Fairtest. If a good test score could potentially increase my chances of being accepted into 96% of four-year colleges, I want access to this test. And as long as most colleges are test-optional, these exams should be easily accessible to all high school students.
So yes, I’m traveling 1,800 miles to take the SAT. (We chose Dallas because they had plenty of seats available and cheap flights.) Having parents with the financial means and flexibility in their work schedules to take me to a testing site far from home is an advantage that many others do not have. California’s lack of testing sites isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s an equity issue.
California students who are unable to take the test due to lack of access will miss out on admissions opportunities at some colleges and scholarships that consider or require SAT/ACT scores in their decisions. For many students, especially those from low-income families, that could mean losing the aid that would make college affordable.
The lack of adequate testing sites appears to be particularly problematic in Northern California. The SAT test date of August 24 demonstrates this. If you had searched the College Board’s website earlier this week for testing centers within a 100-mile radius of San Francisco, Dallas and New York, you would have found 103 testing sites in the New York area, including 49 still had places available. In the Dallas area, there were 69 testing sites and 65 of them were still available. But in the Bay Area, there were only 12 testing sites and they were 100% booked for the August test. In fact, the closest available testing center to San Francisco was 405 miles away. This lack of access puts Northern California students at a disadvantage.
California obviously needs more testing sites. But I would advocate that college entrance exams be offered to every high school student at their own school during a normal school day, as is the case with other standardized tests such as the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
After my family and others raised the issue of a lack of available testing sites with our superintendent, our school district agreed to hold an SAT school day in October. This will allow district students to take the SAT at their school during regular school hours. But change in one school district is not enough. Students and parents across California must demand more testing sites at more schools so more California children can pursue their college dreams.
Sebastian Gillmore is a student at Tamalpais High School in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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