<p>For example, if you are Spanish and you take the Spanish SAT Subject test, does that put you at a disadvantage? In my opinion, it should have no effect, but a French person taking the French SAT doesn't necessarily speak French, but there is no way for the admissions officers to know that. Conversely, someone who is not French may have gone to French school all their life and thus would find the test very easy. </p>
<p>I really want to take an SAT language test (need a third, and I know that 800 in US/World History is a stretch for me), but I'm wondering if it will adversely affect me. I'm in the first example's situation - I was born in a foreign country, and studied the language, but I am nowhere near as fluent as a native speaker.</p>
<p>It's worse for a 3-yr non-native student to take language. I did that with French and I did horribly.</p>
<p>I think it's unfair that kids who have been growing in knowledge of their ethnic language do well in the SAT 2 languages. What? Do you need to prepare your toddlers for SAT 2's? It's not a level field. (<--could say that about a million aspects of Collegeboard)</p>
<p>if you think that you will do well on the foreign language test, then go ahead and take it... if you get an 800, it shows that you are proficient in that language and that's a plus. the only way that i would say not to take it is if that is your first language, not english. if for example, you are taking the TOEFL exam, then don't take the SAT 2 in your native language (it's really redundant)... but if you studied that language and are "nowhere near as fluent as a native speaker" then i think it helps you to show that you have a proficiency in a language other than english.</p>
<p>I don't agree with you sparetire. It may not seem fair, but it is. If you know the language, you know it.</p>
<p>People have been reading avidly since like elementary school, while others have put that down for a while. So for the Critical Reading section, it isn't fair?</p>
<p>If you know math, you know math. You've grown up with it your whole life. Some people are inate at math and understand it to a further extent than others.</p>
<p>yeah, true that, speaking english all your life still doesn't guarantee you an 800 on critical reading or writing, and plus if someone is a native speaker, it's just good for them because that's pretty much an 800 in the bank, so...</p>
<p>Hmm I got 780 in CR and 790 in WR, so I guess that shows that I'm proficient in English. </p>
<p>I'm in an odd situation though: I can get an easy 800 on the SAT II Japanese, but several of my EC's have to do with US-Japan programs. I'm half white, half Japanese, but English has always been easier for me (moved to the US at age 5, and as you know, if you don't use a language, you forget it) and I've always studied Japanese on the side. On my SAT I think I said I was bilingual, but on APs I always mark Caucasian (what am I supposed to mark? "Other" makes it sound like I'm neither Asian nor Caucasian). So as you can see, I'm in an odd situation.</p>
<p>Oh well, I'll talk to the guidance counselor about it.</p>
<p>I'm not entirely sure what colleges think about this, but I always heard people say that getting an 800 on the Chinese SAT II if you are Chinese is pretty worthless (since 40% of people who take the test get an 800). And if you are Chinese but don't get an 800, then it looks bad.</p>