The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is valued nationwide by thousands of colleges as a means of categorizing students’ academic abilities. SAT scores are a critical part of many high school students’ college applications. According to College Board, over 1.97 million high school seniors took the SAT in 2024.
The test’s prevalence has led to some students feeling pressured to take it, such as Julian Martinez, a Berkeley High School senior who took the SAT in May of 2025. “My family was telling me to do (the SAT), my friends were telling me to do it … if I had the independent choice, I might not have taken it … it was an extra hassle,” he said. BHS senior Samantha Hester, who plans to take the SAT for the third time later this year, also attributed the pressure around the test to her decision to repeatedly retake it.
Despite this, Martinez now feels that it was a “good call” to have taken the SAT, which he feels allowed him to hone various academic skills. The exam, which has sections on reading, writing, and math, mainly tests grade-level skills but utilizes a question structure that may be unfamiliar to some. Compared to preparation for other tests, such as AP exams, Martinez had to teach himself new information, a process that he found helpful.
However, Hester had a different view. “I know a lot of really, really, really smart people who should have (gotten) way higher (scores, but) ... it’s not testing, and whether you know content testing, it’s whether you looked up enough or had a book that told you, ‘Oh, you have to do this trick when this question comes,’” she said.
A barrier to students is accessibility. Hester described taking the SAT as an “extreme hassle,” not only preparing for it but also transporting herself to the testing site. Originally, her test location was in Sacramento and she had to pay $40 to change it to San Francisco, which was still difficult to get to.
To Hester, the SAT would be significantly more accessible if BHS offered it more frequently. According to Yasmin Navarro, a BHS college counselor, the administration understands this and works incredibly hard in order to offer the SAT at BHS. However, they are contending with budget constraints and a tight timeframe, which limits the number of students the school can offer the SAT to and the frequency of testing dates.
The test’s cost poses another problem. The price of registration for the test is $68, but factors such as additional score reports or an international student fee can raise the cost quickly. This also doesn’t include the cost of tutoring, textbooks, or other preparation materials.
For Martinez, taking the SAT was financially strenuous. His family moved locations at the time he took it, so “a lot of things were being paid for (then),” he said. This was also reflected by Hester, who felt that she spent “too much money” on the SAT.
In fact, the SAT more greatly favors higher-income families. According to a study by Harvard University, children from the wealthiest one percent of Americans are 13 times more likely than those from low-income families to score 1300 or higher on the SAT. Additionally, they’re simply more likely to take the SAT.
“I would take it over and over if I could just to get the best score I could,” Martinez said, “My take is that it really should be free.” About a third of students who responded to a Jacket survey expressed similar sentiments, saying they would have taken the SAT more times had it been cheaper.
The SAT may be imperfect, but many colleges continue to use it as a component in the college admissions process. The hope is that moving forward the SAT will become more accessible for all students.