I am planning on applying to some Ivys and high ranked LACs. I have a 1500 SAT, am valedictorian at my high school, and have pretty great extracurriculars. However, I just got my November SAT II scores back and I did pretty bad. I got 670 on both Bio (M) and Literature. I already applied to a very prestigious school for early decision and I’m worried this will destroy my chances of getting in. Does anyone know how much these scores will affect my application, especially if I already have pretty good stats otherwise???
I hope someone answers as I have a similar questions. For what it’s worth, I think the SAT II exams are ridiculous. They do not map onto any particular curriculum (unlike AP, IB) so they are basically a test of how much your particular courses happened to cover the material that happens to be on the exam when you take it. Complete crapshoot. Good luck I hope your target schools ignore them and appreciate the rest of your application.
Impossible to answer without specific schools. Scores lower than the accepted student profile will be a negative, above will be a positive. In either case, it will be a data point that is less important than gpa, coursework, SAT/ACT, about the same as a few others, and more important than some minor factors.
No single piece if data will ensure admission and only a significant negative outlier in an important category will destroy an application.
Perhaps evaluating how seriously you take the required testing and make efforts to perform well.
I can assure you schools that require/recommend them will not ignore them.
Deciding they’re stupid, not working at them, and hoping schools ignore them is not a strategy for success, IMHO.
thanks for your answer. I was very worried about my scores the day College Board released them, but you’re right in that universities will consider my application as a whole and of course its nearly impossible to try to “calculate” my chances of getting accepted to so-and-so college based on test scores alone, although of course they can be a good indicator. as of the moment I believe the rest of my application is strong and I am hoping for a good outcome in december 
I would definitely make sure that you have applications into at least two safeties (which also need to be affordable, and you need to be willing to attend them). It is very hard to know what impact this will have. 670 does seem low to me for Ivy League schools or top end LACs.
I think that for Ivy League and equivalent schools you just should apply, do your best, and then forget about them until you hear back. There are a very large number of very good universities and no need to attend an Ivy League or equivalent school.
Do you have other SAT subject tests as well, or is this it? Personally I would have been thrilled and shocked to have gotten 670 on the SAT literature test, but I instead only took SAT subject tests in my strongest subjects.
@Techno13 You know that you can study for them right?
I just don’t think students with great GPAs, great SAT/ACT, great AP scores, ECs, etc. need to do more to prove themselves. Sure, you can study. But it is instead of doing something else…possibly something with meaning and value. It’s not like high-achieving juniors are just sitting around with a ton of free time. I definitely agree that if your dream school requires/recommends them then take them seriously. You can think they are stupid and take them seriously at the same time even.
My D has decided to focus (mostly) on schools that don’t put students through unnecessary and unproductive stress tests as it is likely is an indicator of their academic culture. But if you want an Ivy, I guess you have to play that game.
The advantage for most LACs is that they don’t require or even recommend subject SATs. The most selective generally state that they will consider subject SATs, if submitted. The only LACs that I know which require or recommend subject SATs are Harvey Mudd (required), and Swarthmore recommends Math II for prospective engineering majors.
However, some LACs do require subject SATs for homeschooled students, online high school students or students who attended high schools with nontraditional grading methods.
On the other hand, most highly selective colleges which are not LACs require or highly recommend subject SATs. By “highly recommend”, they usually mean that “if your family can easily afford the extra cost, it’s required”.