It seems to me that more Cali HSs are going to need to offer more testing days. Especially if USC goes to test required (which is widely rumored.)
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We already needed more testing days even before this!!!
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Yes…I see the agony of CA counselors (and some from other areas) on various listservs as some of their students really struggle to find test sites.
I know I sound like a broken record, but if colleges want to require test scores that’s great…but I do think they also have the responsibility to be part of the solution wrt improving access and getting more students, especially low income students, to test.
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I remember having to book a site in Reno, luckily S22 decided not to retake and stick with the one SAT slot he was able to get at some private school locally in the Bay Area. If more schools want SAT they need to ensure adequate dates are available.
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I agree, some like to rail against the college board. Could you imagine the hue and cry if the Department of Education had to create a national test? By the time they were finished someone able to recite the ABCs and count to 10 without their fingers would get a perfect score. 
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Seems like a very localized issue. Low income students in poor states like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana take the test ( ACT) as part of the school day. California seems to be the only place with test site issues, but those are intentional. Can’t fix intentional obstacles. Maybe there will be more ACT sites if people hate the SAT so much.
The state with the lowest education spending in the country, Idaho, manages to offer it, so it must be cheap.
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I’ve never lived in California. Do they not have a school day where everyone takes either the SAT or ACT in the school, and it is free? Other large states do this.
No they do not.
I can’t answer why, I don’t live there. I expect to get that done some politico would have to advocate for it. And in the zero sum game of education dollars, earmarking money for an ACT or SAT test may not be the best way to spend limited K-12 funds. I’m just spitballing. Maybe some CA peeps do know and will comment.
Nope.
Also not all schools offer the PSAT. And where the PSAT is offered, it may be limited. At our HS there are limited spots for the PSAT, only HS juniors may take it (NO 10th graders etc), and when too many students want to register for it, there is a lottery. My son was unlucky in the lottery and could not take the PSAT in his year.
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In CA, it’s usually (AFAIK) Sat with a very few Sundays for religious reasons. It does take a bit of planning. Register too late (like less than 2 months out) and you will need to go some very far distances. At least once, I know someone who drove 150 miles only to find out the site was canceled without notice.
Yes, we also knew someone who had this happen (I don’t remember how many miles but it was hours of driving for them).
Just pulled the data for Class of 2023.
25% of California Class of 2023 students took an SAT, 4% took an ACT (37% nationally took an ACT).
ACT p 2: https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/2023-Average-ACT-Scores-by-State.pdf
This has been happening quite often since Covid (and not just in CA)
It is always puzzling when citizens of an extraordinarily wealthy place like California choose such obstacles for themselves.
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Because up until this point, it has been (for me anyways) low priority because of TO policy. But with D27, our plans for her will need to be significantly different.
We’re in Washington and I’d say that at least half of S25’s private school class is not planning on or has not taken the SAT or ACT. The Washington state schools are mostly test blind, so are many of the Oregon schools, and the UCs.
As a result, there aren’t tons of testing locations, at S25’s test there were kids from all over who drove in and got hotels in order to take the test. Luckily he has a crazy mother that booked it the first day I could 
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Yes, S25 was supposed to take the ACT this weekend and they just canceled it. No idea why.
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I note there are many outside observers who would say that about the United States as a whole.
We are not a country that has embraced standardization of secondary school curricula or assessments. And I am the wrong person to argue this, but there are some who feel very strongly about the importance of local control of secondary schools.
But then when you try to transition from a hyperlocalized secondary system to “national” colleges . . . we get what we have. A system full of awkward patches and bodges and inefficiencies and inequities and so on.
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Hopeful that by the time our grandkids have to consider standardized testing it will all be on line. Not sure if it would still have to be in a proctored environment, but that’s doable.
Superscoring benefits teh colleges themselves. Otherwise, they would do it.
I have not seen any research wrt income and number of retests taken.
absolutely not (and never have).