Hi all ,
I see that Carnegie Melon only considers ACT/SAT taken during Junior or Senior year.
Can someone please let me know if this applies to Subject SATs as well ?
Thanks
My son applied to CMU this year and should hear from them this Saturday (fingers crossed). He took his Math 2 Subject SAT in June of his sophomore year and they accepted that score. So unless they changed it for this coming year application, I would think you would be fine.
Thank you for the reply. Good luck to your son !
You’re welcome! And good luck to you with your college search process 
My D will be taking them in May, finishing Pre-calc in her Freshman year. I just wrote the admissions office to ask, as forcing her to wait 1-2 years after she studied the material on the test seems asinine.
I’ll post what I hear back for others, like me, who find this thread via Search.
I find this hard to believe, but CMU admissions confirmed that they believe waiting 1-2 years after taking a course to take the test to see if you’ve learned the material is “a more appropriate indicator” of student talent.
I’m a bit speechless at that response.
I can understand the general SAT/ACT in Junior/Senior year but waiting 2 years after course completion and then taking the Subject test doesn’t make any sense 
@RichInPitt – ‘student talent’ or ability to retain/recall information? The latter is very appropriate I would think.
I asked my guidance counselor the same question and he emailed the admissions office, and they responded by saying they will accept it, but they will “weigh it less” in the context of the application. I’m in the same boat as you, as my subject tests are from freshman and sophomore year (there is no way I’m taking them again), and you can definitely submit them to the university.
@SkepticalOfMost I don’t recall any of my college courses at CMU having final exams 2 years after the class, so no one else there thinks long-term recall is important in evaluating your progress as a student. Seems odd admissions would be looking for something not important to those actually educating the students.
I suspect that a very significant portion of the students at CMU finished pre-calc and took Math 2 before Junior year. I actually asked them about that and they didn’t respond.
My son took the Math 2 test in June of his sophomore year. He was accepted this year to CMU for engineering. Good luck!
Any more info on this? - is this CMU policy more like a guideline (cautionary advice to not take subject test early) or a strictly enforced rule. Wonder if the students who got admission despite of the test taken in sophomore can add their other stats or give any additional info (i.e. if they have something extra-ordinary going for them and CMU gave them slack but for ordinary mortals it may become an issue?). Any thoughts @“UMD2021&2023” ? TIA
CMU is one of my top choices (understandably a reach) and this concerns me. I took Math subject test in the June of sophomore year (after completing both Pre-Calc and Calc). Since I scored 800 - thought I am all set. Do I need to repeat this test?
Just me own personal opinion/approach - I’m ignoring it. My D took Math 2 as a Freshman and will take Chemistry as a Sophomore and that’s what will be sent. She also scored higher that their average admitted SCS student on the SAT in 8th grade. If they don’t want her because it was “too early”, it’s their loss. (Maybe AIME qualifying in 9th was too early too?)
From the number of PM’s I received that said they weren’t held to this policy, I’m not overly concerned.
But the policy is documented, so you need to make your own decision.
I decided not to retake - but its a bit disappointing as I was considering ED and now I am rethinking (whether to do ED or not - don’t want to waste my ED option; have another college high on the list with ED - maybe I should try that instead).
IMHO their reason of quoting retain/recall issues with ‘early’ subject test is not very convincing. In our school, students who are on accelerated math path take pre-calc in freshman year and write the sat subject test in freshman/sophomore. We don’t stop the math education there, but went on to Multi variable calc/linear algebra which are more close to the topics taught in the college. What retain/recall issue they are concerned about? Anyway, it seems their on-paper policy - hope they won’t held it to the letter of it.
Hi hs2020kid,
I don’t think my son had anything extraordinary going for him. A few of his stats…
SAT (only took it once) 1570 (800 Math, 770 English)
Math 2 subject test 800 (sophmore year)
Physics subject test 800 (junior year)
12 AP classes, scored 5’s on all of his tests (Calc BC, both Physics C’s, Stats, Chem, Lang, Literature, US History, Macro, Micro, World History, Comp Sci)
4.0 unweighted GPA at very competitive STEM magnet school. School didn’t do rankings, but he won an award for being in the top 5% of his class.
Also took linear algebra and multivariable calculus
4 years Varsity cross country and wrestling
2 year summer internship in robotics lab at George Washigton University
Over 500 hours of community volunteer service
Very strong essays and letters of recommendation
He was admitted to CMU for mechanical engineering and did not have to retake the Math 2 test eventhough he had taken it in his sophmore year. But that was last year’s application cycle. You could definitely contact someone in admissions to see what they say. Hopefully it is just their on paper policy. I think your decision to not retake it was a good one. My son said he definitely wouldn’t habe retaken it with a score of 800.
Hope the rest of your college application process is going well! I know it can be hard to decide where to do an ED application, so best of luck!!
@“UMD2021&2023” - thanks for the details - really appreciate it (BTW - my stats are almost same as your son till summer internship - with slightly higher sat but with a bit lower gpa) I am planning to apply Mellon and/or SCS - intended majors are Math and/or CS. I am leaning towards RD, so I can apply to both schools.
I did contact the admissions and they confirmed that they look for Junior year SAT scores. However, the wording indicates that its not a must - as someone else previously mentioned - they may give a bit lower weightage (?) for any pre-junior year SAT scores.
Personally, I am swamped with too many things right now and am not going to retake. For any future students, I would suggest to wait till junior year for subject tests (especially for strong math students - it does not really need any long/special prep - a couple days of refreshing should be enough). This is if CMU is your first choice - I didn’t see this junior year restriction for any other colleges.