Hello,
Does anyone know how much non-scorechoice schools (e.g. UCs, U Penn, etc) will perceive very poor SAT IIs (sophmore: WH 490, 620 Chem; jr: 690 Bio M) even with some good ones (750 Bio M and 800 M II)? Especially assuming the rest of the application is fairly strong as well?
Will they simply discount the scores in light of the better ones? Will it be a strong negative? Automatic rejection?
Thank you so much for the feedback.
You can score choice and just send the better ones. There is no school that asks for more than 2 SAT 2s (except one or two very competitive schools that suggest but don’t require 3). Why would you send the others? 750 and 800, not bad!!
Specifically for premed
PS schools don’t know if you have or have not score choiced.
Why would you take the SAT II as a sophomore?
That 490 could seriously handicap your application, because among 5,000 or 10,000 qualified applicants, it’ll make you stand out like a sore thumb.
UCs have score choice for SAT 2s.
@NotVerySmart Ignorance on my part. Any recommended course of action?
As mentioned, I feel like I’m relatively strong for high UCs (published research, state level leadership, etc.) and whatnot, but I’m very worried because of these old scores.
Also, I’ll obviously be using/have used score choice for schools that allow it.
Not much you can do at this point, except use score choice where possible, and hope that the rest of your schools look past the 490 and 620.
Unfortunately, with A: the recent epidemic of 4.0 GPAs and B: rising scores due to a combination of score choice, retakes, and students trying both the SAT and ACT and sending only their better results, differentiating applicants to top universities has become very difficult. As the admissions dean at one of my choices put it: “We could probably take our entire freshman class, shoot them, replace them with 2,500 of the applicants we had to reject, and nobody would notice the difference. (pause) Except their parents. (cue laughter)”
In this environment, SAT II scores are one factor schools can use as a tiebreaker. They aren’t the be-all and end-all, but I won’t pretend they help your odds.
@tne2011 do they claim they only look at highest or can you actually use score choose? Couldn’t find it online 
@NotVerySmart ,
My D took SAT II when she was a sopomore, too. Many people @ CC suggest that it’s wise to take the subject test right after you finish the course. She took AP World History in sophomore year, so she took the subject test at the end of the sophomore year.