<p>u.s. history -- 710
literature -- (670 originally), 730 retaken</p>
<p>taking biology and retaking lit in december. not sure how well i'll do on bio; i'm gonna study but i haven't taken bio since fall of last year. and maybe trying to add spanish but i'm not even done with my second year yet. :-/</p>
<p>but as they stand, does it look like i'm completely screwed?</p>
<p>No, you aren’t. Those are very good scores. The lit score is good–that’s a hard test. Why would you retake that rather than history? And why would you take the Spanish test?</p>
<p>thank you! well, i took the u.s. history test right after taking the ap u.s. history class and test last year so i figure that’s the best i’m going to do on it. i mean, i got a 5 on the ap u.s. history test and right after i get a 710 on the sat ii, so i figure now–months after taking the class–it’s unlikely i would do better unless i spent a ton of time restudying (but i was already in the process of studying hard for the ap test when i took the sat ii…) i mean, do you think the 710 looks really bad and maybe i should consider retaking?</p>
<p>as for the spanish, i think i might be able to do good but i’m not sure. i’m gonna try to find some practice tests and see. </p>
<p>and for lit, i know there are probably a lot of people who got 750+ and i think i might be able to if i retake it. :-/</p>
<p>It’s really hard to say how you’ll do if you take lit again–usually there are diminishing returns. I take your point on history.</p>
<p>is there a particular reason that there are often diminishing returns if you take a test more than twice? </p>
<p>and even if i did worse, wouldn’t yale still only consider the highest score i got?</p>
<p>
I think College Board simply states that this is the typical result–that you might improve, but the improvement tends to be less each time. It might be different if you prep a lot more, I suppose. The question is whether there is something better to do with your time.</p>
<p>so they think you are likely to improve but maybe not by much? i still think it’s worth it to retake it then. even a 750 looks a lot better than a 730, no?</p>
<p>I think that you are right about not retaking the US History Exam, but I also got a 730 on the Lit subject test which I took in June and although it is not 750 + I think it is good enough. There is really no point if you are going to spend all that time studying for Lit and raising your score by only a little when you could be focusing on the bio test and getting an 800 on it.</p>
<p>they aren’t bad scores, but they won’t really help you either.</p>
<p>have you taken the ACT? you can send that instead.</p>
<p>
I would say no–it only looks a little better.</p>
<p>@ collegestress, i’m not really going to study for the lit retake. there isn’t really a good way to study for that test anyway, imo. it seems to stem more from one’s inherent ability to interpret literature and not from memorizing facts, so i will definitely be studying more for the bio anyway and will probably just retake the lit to see if i can improve my score at all. maybe this time i’ll get ALL passages i understand completely (on the last one, there was one passage i was iffy about and it’s probably what cost me.)</p>
<p>@ fraudulence, i took the act and did really poorly on it (27). i’m definitely sending my sat and sat ii’s instead. :P</p>
<p>so even if–by some chance–i do WORSE on my lit retake, yale will still only consider the highest i got (730, if it may be), right?</p>
<p>I guess if you have to go take an SAT II anyway, there’s no particular harm in taking lit again. It might look a bit odd to some adcoms that you would take that particular test three times.</p>
<p>really? :-/ the first time i took it, i didn’t finish about half of the questions and so i got a 670. the second time, i luckily got through the whole thing with 5 minutes left over! 
but hmmm…if it would look weird…<em>sigh</em></p>
<p>Definitely take a Spanish practice test before you consider taking it. Around here, students have had 5 years of Spanish before they take it, or are native speakers with a couple years of classes to improve their grammar and writing skills.</p>
<p>I think the two scores you have are fine-no need to re-take Lit, just prepare well for Bio.</p>
<p>yeah, i heard that people who are in AP spanish literature even thought it was hard, so i’m not taking it after all. :P</p>
<p>and while i won’t really study for lit any more (cuz there really isn’t a good way to study for lit, is there?), i’ll probably retake it just for the hell of it and see if i improve…</p>
<p>Here are the percentiles from the latest (05-06) percentiles. I would imagine that the curve have grown more difficult since, considering the increasing number of applicants.</p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
<p>730 Lit = 89th percentile
710 US History = 81st percentile</p>
<p>I hope this gives you an approximate idea of where you are.</p>
<p>yeah, i saw that. and it seems to me that it’s pretty good. (especially the lit test. well i think doing better than about 90% of people is good.) but in comparison to other ivy applicants, i’m not sure…</p>