Most people will take their SAT at the beginning of their Junior year. This way they have ample time to retake if they're not happy with their scores.
Stanford, MIT, and the Ivies see the SAT as more of a threshold score. I.E. there's not much difference between a 2300 and a 2400. As long as you have above a certain range, you should be fine. The SAT doesn't make or break people.
I keep hearing that Muni and BART are awful, but how so? I've been on public transit in NYC, Boston, Berlin, and other major cities and I don't notice any significant disparities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellevue_Downtown_Park