Why is this problem so prevalent in the west coast? Is it location cost to host the test?
Some thoughts:
-Higher than average counselor:student ratios, especially in Cali. This may get worse this summer as many high schools must reduce headcount due to no more covid $
-Relatively fewer dedicated college counselors/testing coordinators
-Relatively greater anti-testing sentiment among adults working in education
-Relatively few colleges on the west coast require test scores, and the entire UC system is test blind.
While this testing accessibility issue does seem more pronounced on the west coast, many other areas don’t have the testing capacity they had pre-covid. In my area in Chicagoland one has to register very quickly (within an hour of registration opening) if they want their preferred testing site and/or a site relatively close to home.
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@Mwfan1921 thanks for linking the letter.
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So by example are you suggesting the 15 year old first gen, low income kid in Oakland who can’t access the exam “choose” to be in that situation? Not sure who you are suggesting made this choice when the impact is on kids.
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@Vijay_Raju if this is your real name, I would urge you to change your screen name to something else…asap.
Here is how:
The children are never responsible for a situation their parents and schools created. If the adults in their lives don’t want to provide the test ( as apparently they do not), that is their decision. I wish the state would overrule that decision by making it mandatory, but again, up to the voters in that state, the majority of whom do not want it.
Parents host the SAT or ACT? Not where I come from. These tests are hosted by schools who are vetted to do so.
Parents manage to get their schools, civil authorities, religious or other institutions to host it. Those over 18 with a high school diploma can do so-experience administering tests is preferred but not required. So yes, parents get it administered as they deem necessary. Libraries, language tutoring sites, and nonprofit foundations all host sites worldwide.
Reminder that this thread is not in the political forum, so debate is not permitted.
For my D22, we drove 6 hours for one SAT, involving an hotel stay, and then flew to Portland from the Bay Area for the second test. Next weekend we are driving 90 mins for the ACT for S26 and staying in a hotel the night before. We are extremely fortunate to be able to do this but it is an enormous hassle and impossible for less economically fortunate students.
I agree that this is not any high school’s problem. Schools should charge College Board to host exams at their sites, College Board should staff professionals to proctor. College Board is a racket. I would skip the whole thing entirely if I didn’t think that test scores are a potentially useful data point in an equally ridiculous college admissions game.
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Perhaps you could ask a local university to host it. They do in several locations.
It is unlikely the College Board, or any organization, is going to fly proctors to the 6 locations in Mongolia, for example, offering the test. Use of local citizens is necessary for both financial and logistical reasons. It is quite impressive that such poverty-stricken places (per capita GDP of $5k) do manage to provide such opportunities for their students.
Same for us- we had to drive to San Diego, requiring a hotel stay. Our high school offered the PSAT on a Saturday- which I think should have been replaced with the SAT. (more inclusive of the student body rather than taking the PSAT for the small % of kids who will get National Merit scholar.)
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I don’t think these parents are responsible for the situations they find themselves in.
Personally I feel horrible for them.
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Apparently there are relatively few of them, or at least not enough to foster change.
Overall, it seems College Board has done a good job in getting its test administered ( or at least offered to) among the less privileged throughout the US and even made great in-roads worldwide. I expect its efforts to support test administration would rightly focus on areas of great poverty, lack of educated populace, war-torn or other places of great need.
The College Board’s CEO David Coleman was compensated over $2.5mm last year and 3 other executives earned over $1mm. The testing revenue earned (by this non profit) is over $1 billion annually.
The CB is a monopolistic business enterprise and should be compelled to treat the students as customers. This includes providing access and ensuring the exams are administered. They should as corporate leaders be expected to “multi task” for all the communities they serve.
The OP is based on students showing up for an exam they signed up for well in advance, traveled great distances to take and paid for in full before showing up. The exam wasn’t administered.
The responsibility and blame falls upon those who accepted the responsibility of scheduling and taking fees. Not the parents, kids or school personnel in my opinion.
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Once again, debate is not permitted outside the political forum. Take the back and forth to PM. Further posts will be deleted without comment.
Our public high school administers another CB product, AP exams. I’m a trained proctor and have been administering tests every spring for years as a volunteer. I take a vacation day to do this as it’s 4-5 hours a day —again, lucky that I can do that.
I don’t blame my public high school for not seeing the value in doing this task again/all year for SAT testing, when they are very clearly geared toward satisfying UC/CSU requirements and that system is test blind. It is a huge undertaking to do the AP testing where 900 of our students take 1-5 exams. They are constantly looking for and training more volunteers, upending the organization of tables and rooms to accommodate the tests and meet the needs of students with accommodations, the paperwork is insane, and the pressure is high. Of course other places do this on the regular, but when you have to do all of this at your school’s expense, and your public school system feeds into a test blind public college system, I guess it’s not surprising that it ends up this way.
Perhaps the colleges that want scores should be obligated to host and manage the SAT. I don’t feel it is my problem to solve but I do pay money for my kid to take this test and there is a huge market in the Bay Area, full of high school students who want to take the test. College Board is a business that seemingly has a pretty tight hold on west coast testing (the ACT is not widely given here either). I would be equally happy if some competition came along and gave us more choice, more flexibility and more reliability.
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If there was a huge market, the test would be given. Supply and demand. There is a market on CC. Otherwise, not so much, it appears.
Kudos to Ukraine, for continuing multiple testing centers despite an ongoing war. It must be a priority for them
The crazy thing about this cancellation was that it was at the Marriott - not a local high school - and the College Board contracted with a vendor! https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/sat-testing-suddenly-canceled-oakland/3554549/
We had a hell of time trying to get my two kids in for the SAT. One was in the depths of Covid so I had a little more understanding of the challenges. But Kid No. 2 was in the past two years. Test centers were filled the day registration started, and when they did register, there were 3 cancellations by the school host - 2 just days before we were slated to travel to take them. Then when one of my kids had finally managed to take it the second time, the College Board proctor gave them the same test from the last administration - so it was never scored. It’s beyond frustrating.
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1,000 plus kids, wow! Sounds like a lot of demand to me. Certainly well beyond the 3-5 posters we have heard from in this thread.
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