<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I was wondering whether taking a GRE subject test in high school would help me get into a selective school such as MIT. I am asking this because I love biology and am pretty good at it. I have memorized Biology by Campbell & Reece, the standard AP book for Biology Oylmpiad. I looked at a sample full length GRE test and it seems doable - I got a 176 / 200 which I think is pretty good w/o studying (the practice test puts me in the top 99%). </p>
<p>Would this make me stand out from the crowd becuase a big part of my application is about my passion for biology and biology olympiad and getting an 800 / close to 800 on the SAT subject test isn't that special for an MIT applicant or would they just discard it. </p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>I don’t know how the admissions office would look at the GRE subject test, but the biology test in particular is pretty trivial – it doesn’t cover much material past freshman biology at MIT. Biology PhD programs certainly don’t put much weight on it in their application process. </p>
<p>My feeling is that if you have an extra Saturday morning and $150, knock yourself out. But I seriously doubt it would help your application.</p>
<p>From everything I’ve seen through my MIT admissions process, beyond a baseline of satisfactory academic performance (GPA, test scores, rigorous course-load) the admissions committee looks at you as a person. That means that they will focus on the more subjective parts of your app (essays, extra-curricular activities, etc.). So, if you want to spend money and hours to take and do well on an exam, that’s good. But if those same energy and resources were channeled into an extra-curricular activity you are passionate about, that could be even better.</p>