If a student scores high enough on a subject test in a foreign language, are they actually exempt from taking foreign language at Penn? Or is it just for placement? Sorry, it’s unclear to me.
Thanks.
It’s for both. If you score high enough, you are exempt. However, if you want to take the next level, the exam will tell you the appropriate placement.
Not sure my son can take a subject test during his gap year, but he would love to be exempt from foreign language! I guess he can ask Penn about that.
Thanks.
In that case, he should just take the placement test at Penn during New Student Orientation; it saves paying the College Board.
Wait, sorry. So if you take a placement test and you test at a certain level, you can be exempt from taking any foreign language? (Yes, sorry I’m so dense) I thought placement was just, well, for placement, not for testing out of language completely. I mean a subject test is just high school level proficiency. Is the placement the same thing?
Yes, if you do well enough on the placement test, you can fulfill the foreign language requirement and not have to take any foreign language classes at Penn. For most languages, this is a 650+ on the SAT Subject Test or scoring well enough on the placement examination at Penn. While skieurope is correct that you save money by taking the exam at Penn, it’s considered to be much easier to get the 650+ than to place out of the entire introductory sequence in a language on the Penn examination. If the cost of the Subject Test is not too much of a financial stress on your family, I’d recommend your son take it, as it could save him from having to take 4 language classes at Penn.
Now he just needs to find out if he’s allowed to take a subject test during his gap year.
Thanks so much.
Yes, he can.
You’ve seen it done before, then, @skieurope? I wonder if he should still confirm that, and I also wondered about if College Board is ok with a high school graduate taking a test if they’re on a gap year…or maybe it doesn’t matter to them.
We were just discussing options last night. If he moved into the DMD program from Fine Arts, I see that foreign language isn’t required for engineering majors.
He felt his struggles with Italian were due to his learning disability, but who knows. He wouldn’t mind learning a foreign language such as Polish or Yiddish, but he really wants to do it on his own without the pressures of a grade. (He got a B in his college Italian class, but it wasn’t enjoyable for him)
Clearly, if he takes a subject test, he’ll need to learn a language that’s covered by the subject tests, so Polish and Yiddish are out! 
Yes.
Correct.
Just in case you’re not aware, the Italian SAT Subject Test is only offered once a year.
Meh. I think he would NOT take that one. He would rather learn anything else at this point. But, that is good to know in case I’m wrong about what he’d want to study.
Thanks again.
@skieurope, what about taking an AP exam during a gap year?
Above a 650 = Exempt!