In Fall of the 2024-2025 school year  Cosumnes Oaks High School hosted its first Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), officially becoming a testing center. Since then it has accommodated students from across the Sacramento region and beyond almost every other month: many of whom are high school seniors in desperate search of a testing center.

The SAT is a standardized math and English exam used for college admissions for the past 98 years. Last fall over 1.9 million students took the exam. Yet, many Northern California high school students travel hundreds of miles to take the SAT because they can not find a seat locally. 

Within 24 hours, COHS’s August test date was full. And as spring test dates approach, the demand for SAT testing centers remains high. Angelina Gan, a senior at Cosumnes Oaks High, took the exam at her home campus in October.

“I originally planned to take it in Nevada, so that automatically took off an eight hour drive [and] all of the anxiety that came with having to plan such a big trip,” said Gan. “I think I did better here because I was already used to the environment.”A few months prior, she had traveled three hours to Palo Alto for her first SAT.

“It was very stressful,” Gan said. “We got to the hotel around 10 p.m. the night before and then at 4 a.m. I had to wake up and get ready to go to the SAT (site) which was around a 30 minute drive away.”

Arie Nootenboom, another senior at COHS, shared a similar experience, traveling two to three hours to Chico.

“I had to wake up around between 3 and 4 a.m. because the test started at 8 a.m. and I really didn’t wanna be late,” Nootenboom said. “I heard that there was someone at my test center who got turned away at the door because they were a few minutes late, and they had also driven several hours to get there.” 

As a response to COVID-19 in 2021, all colleges in the California State University (CSU) system became test-blind – eliminating the SAT from admissions decisions. In 2023, the University of California (UC) system followed suit, announcing plans to create their own standardized test for. In the meantime, SAT centers have closed rapidly. 

Northern California has felt this change significantly. For the August test date, the Bay Area had 12 test centers open – a stark contrast to major metropolitan regions in other states such as Dallas, which had 70. Many students compare finding a test center to a lottery or a game, as the search can take hours.

“The day that they opened up registration for the new test, the nearest test center got completely filled up after a few minutes,” said Nootenboom. “It took a lot of like, refreshing the page and then setting the distance to further away and then refreshing it again, until I could actually find a test center.”

“[My experience] made me more nervous to take the test, and I think that’s why I didn’t do as well on my first try,” Gan said.

Rachel Baird, an English teacher at COHS, recognized this issue in her community and took the initiative to make her school a test center. 

“[In] California, because it’s test-blind now, there’s just less priority on schools offering the SAT,” said Baird. “And so any student who wants to go out of state or go to a private school, if they need to take the SAT because it’s required at more schools this year, there’s just less opportunities for them to do so …I wanted to make it as easy as possible for our students to find a spot.”

Despite this progress, some students feel it’s still not enough.

“It wasn’t enough because there are a lot of people who want to take the test,” said Nootenboom. “At the test center I went to – like that was just at one school – there were not nearly enough seats at that test center at that time to be able to facilitate all of the students at that school, and CO is probably gonna be similar to that.”

“I think a lot more students are more ambitious than schools may be led to believe,” said Gan. “Even though many schools are now test optional, a lot of students still want to take the SAT or the ACT to improve their application.”

“I just think that College Board or schools that are requiring the SAT need to take a more active role in making it possible for California students to get spots,” said Baird. “Because right now, it’s completely dependent on [high]schools to figure it out.”