On the first three-day weekend of the school year, instead of sleeping in or spending time with friends, I drove 250 miles to take the SAT. An 8 a.m. start time on Saturday meant that I had to drive down the night before, find lodging and wake up at 5 a.m. to drive another 30 miles to the test center. Even with all of my attempts at timeliness, I still arrived at Ernest Righetti High School in Santa Maria a little too late for comfort.
I’m not the only one who has had to travel long distances simply to take the SAT. With only 12 testing sites in the Bay Area (as of May 2024), some of my peers in the junior class have recounted stories of spending multiple days driving to different states or flying across the country for just a two hour and 14 minute test. What’s worse: some of those travel costs can be 10 times greater than the $68 registration fee.
The College Board has cited a lack of available test sites as an issue in access and has embarked on an initiative to add seats in regions with limited spots. Few schools have taken up the call. Menlo only offers an on-site SAT testing day for seniors in early October, and a second day for juniors in March, surprising for a school that is well-resourced and should be able to host tests for every SAT date.
Menlo should do its part in relieving the state-wide test site shortage that can negatively impact economically- disadvantaged students. College admissions continue to be a high-stakes and stressful process, and it is even more so for families struggling to afford university tuition. With only 4 percent of four-year colleges being test blind, the vast majority do consider the SAT as part of the admissions process.
Simply put, the brief experiment where universities moved away from standardized test scores appears to be over. Students who are serious about attending a four-year university have to take the SAT, not just for admissions, but for financial scholarships. A single attempt at the SAT may not be enough to achieve a competitive score.
Many families can’t afford to take an SAT “vacation” by flying or driving to less-crowded testing sites. Some public schools, like Lowell High School, address this need and appear to be a permanent SAT testing site. However, the logistics of hosting the SAT are challenging. It is often difficult to find test proctors as many public school teachers, already working overtime, cannot proctor the test on a Saturday, especially when they earn just $21 per hour for this job. SAT sites also need strong and reliable Wi-Fi to support the digital SAT, and not every location has the internet infrastructure in place to support a few thousand students going online.
In May 2024, the Wi-Fi at a large SAT testing site in downtown Oakland froze as 1,400 students prepared to take the exam. The result: stress, chaos and complaints from parents and students, who had to take a rescheduled SAT in San Francisco later. Menlo has the technology, space and personnel necessary to administer a successful SAT. By becoming a permanent testing site, Menlo would help to reduce this SAT inequity by also freeing up seats at other schools that cannot host a test for thousands of students.
College prep is a cornerstone of a Menlo education. Offering multiple on-site SATs should be an established practice to support college-bound students. While Menlo offers seniors an on-site SAT in October, juniors who are balancing a heavy course load and extracurricular activities must compete for one of the twelve public testing locations in the Bay Area for all other dates.
Menlo far exceeds the requirements to host an SAT as required by the College Board: our school has sufficient testing space and strong and reliable internet access. Menlo should not limit this opportunity to its students, but open it up to the wider community. Our school’s commitment to equity, belonging and inclusion should make higher education possible for all students who want to pursue it.
