Dear gibby and knowledgeable others,
Do you know how the admissions officers at the most selective colleges, especially Harvard, regard a 680 on Literature?
I’ll weigh in from the slightly different perspective of a parent of a student/athlete recruited by Harvard and other peer schools. Although athletes are given a little slack, their scores are expected to be at or near those of the general student body. DS was told that athletes in his sport should score 700+ across the board on all SAT sections as well as Subject Tests.
From that perspective a 680 sounds a little low, though I’ll acknowledge that the Literature test has a steeper curve, with a 680 being a higher percentage than, say, Math Level 2. Still, I believe that the fundamental expectation of 700+ across the board generally holds.
I hope that helped. Good luck!
Edit to add: If it were me reviewing a file, I’d consider a 680 Literature score to be perfectly fine, as I’d tire of all the 800’s in Math 2, Physics, etc. but that’s just me.
To Sherpa’s point, please read this from Harvard’s FAQ golf recruitment page: http://www.gocrimson.com/sports/mgolf/faq
If those are the test scores and GPA needed for a recruited athlete, Admissions is NOT likely to lower their standards for a non-athlete. So, your 680 is a bit low, but not every student is a humanities major. Hopefully you will be submitting a higher Math or Science Subject Test score.
It depends on your other scores, as others have said, and what else you bring to the table. If you have had a symphony performed, or were homeless but excelled, etc. etc. it makes a difference. If you are relying solely on academics, it is harder to get in even with an 800.
I would have sent different Subject Tests (ideally with scores of at least 750), but you can’t change it at this point, and, as everyone else said, if there were a test on which a 680 were acceptable at Harvard, Literature would be it.
A 680 SAT II Lit score is in the 66th percentile. Harvard accepts about 6 percent of its applicants. A 760 on the Lit test last year was 92nd percentile. So, that was probably even a little low by Harvard standards. 17,544 people scored a 690 or better on the Lit test last year. Harvard accepted 2,080 applicants last year.
@baltimoreguy: Harvard (and all ivy league schools) ignore SAT Subject Test percentiles for the purposes of calculating a student Academic Index. For the AI the only thing that matters is the top raw score regardless of percentiles. See: http://www.collegeconfidential.com/academic_index/
@gibby, I would speculate that Harvard uses Subject Tests for much more than merely computing an Academic Index
From Inside Higher Ed:
^^ Harvard has made SAT Subject tests optional – and they seem to be accepting students who submit one SAT Subject test, or student’s who don’t submit them at all. So, I question actually how much weight Harvard is placing on Subject tests these days.
I’m with @gibby on this one. Regardless of how much weight Harvard puts on Subject Test scores, in the 10-15 minutes tops that they spend on an application, I really doubt that they are crossreferencing percentile charts.
Last year, 566 people scored an 800 on the SAT II Lit test and more than 27,000 scored 800 on the Math 2. That’s a 1:49 ratio. I think the Harvard Admissions Office is aware of the difference. In fact, if they are spending only 10 minutes on each application, knowing the percentiles associated with various Subject Tests might actually be a very fast and consistent way to make some distinctions between uniformly excellent applicants.
Again, I’m talking specifically about Harvard, whose Admissions Dean has made repeated comments about his high regard for Subject tests.
And they really wouldn’t need to cross reference the percentile charts anew with every single application. Creating 1 chart 1 time at the start of reading season would be all it takes.
We were told by a couple ivy coaches that for AI admissions will only use subject tests if they help your AI calculation.
For SAT subject scores, Princeton has a middle 50% range of 720-800. Note that at least 25% of applicants had 790s and 800s, so with a 7% acceptance rate high scores definitely aren’t sufficient.
http://www.princeton.edu/pub/profile-archive/profile201415/admission/undergraduate/
Similarly, Williams has a median SAT subject score around 750.
http://admission.williams.edu/files/student-profile.pdf
So the most selective colleges would regard a 750+ as a “good” SAT subject score.