<p>My son wants to study finance in college. What kind of math skill do most of the top schools require for finance major? He has taken SAT Math Level II. Should he take Level I? What's the point of having two levels? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>You might want to ask your question about math and finance on the Business major forum. </p>
<p>As far as taking Math 1 after Math 2, there is no purpose whatsoever since the Math 2 is on higher level concepts. As a matter of fact, schools will only consider one Math Subject test. So if two Subject tests are necessary for applying, using both the Math 1 & 2 will not meet the requirements.</p>
<p>I was talking to a friend whos an accountant, somewhat similar to finance, and he said past calculus there’s not really much advanced math they use, but there is still math involved.</p>
<p>It likely depends on the school.</p>
<p>In some cases, finance may require the same math as a general business major (frosh calculus for business majors and introductory statistics). But quantitative finance can use more math (e.g. if one wants to understand the [Black</a> Scholes](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black–Scholes]Black”>Black–Scholes model - Wikipedia) option model). For this reason, math and statistics majors often find employment in finance (or the related actuarial field – see [Be</a> an Actuary](<a href=“http://www.beanactuary.com%5DBe”>http://www.beanactuary.com) ) after graduation. Going on to a Masters in Financial Engineering post-graduate professional program requires a strong math background.</p>
<p>As far as SAT subject tests are concerned, Math Level 2 includes coverage of higher level subjects like trigonometry. Scores tend to be high on that test (800 scores are relatively common), because it attracts a self-selected group of students who are better than most college-bound high school students in math (they are at least a year ahead, having completed trigonometry and precalculus as juniors or before, in order to be taking Math Level 2 in time for college applications during senior year).</p>
<p>There is no real point to taking Math Level 1 after taking Math Level 2.</p>
<p>Thanks, entomom, Etuck24, and ucbalumnus. </p>
<p>ucbalumnus, you are right about the fact scores tend to be high on level 2 because of self-selecting. My son, a sophomore, got 800 and, based on stats of that test, 800 is only 85 percentile. I don’t know his raw score since the report has no indication. (why not report the raw score - i wonder). He is also taking AP Stats this year and thinking about going for Finance. Sounds like you know a lot about it, what are the courses should he take to prep for Finance major and what are the top colleges with Finance major? Is it mostly within business school? </p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>