More Latino students are taking the SAT in California than students of any other ethnicity, they comprise a third of the high school seniors who took the college entrance exam last year, according to the California Department of Education. Not only that, more Latino students are taking the SAT than ever before: the number jumped twelve percent in just one year, to almost 70,000 students.

The SAT is required by most colleges and universities. Matt Taylor of the state Department of Education says the SAT is one of the best predictors of college attendance, because students take it by choice.

"It means that those students believe that they’re ready to attend college and that  they would like to attend college," Taylor said. "That is a very important step for a lot of these students, who are traditionally under-represented in four-year universities."

The upward trend squares with national data from the Pew Hispanic Center that saw Latino college attendance spike in recent years. The Pew report shows that most of that growth is in community college attendance, and not at four-year institutions.