@whataboutcollege Great score! Congratulations to your daughter! Where would i find the practice tests for the subject tests?
@Cheeringsection Thanks for that insight! I hadnât thought about the correlations between math and music and I donât think D20 has really either so I will relay that info.
@janiemiranda I think she might have taken the official CBâs subject test blue book? Not sure what else she did. She was a very strong chemistry student, so I wasnât paying much attention.
âHistory subject test has many fact-based questions, very different from APUSH exam.â
Did anyoneâs kid take the AP Euro exam? Perhaps any of that along with the APUSH class preparation will more than prepare one for the US History Subject Test. Just surmising.
My son took AP EURO(5)and World History (800) Subject tests, with the subject test being an add-on the teacher advised to do because he knew the material. History is his thing, also. Heâll take the APUSH exam this year and the MATH II Subject Test instead of the US History Subject Test because he is so history top-heavy.
No subject tests here. None of her schools require or recommend, so, yeah. I do want her to take a CLEP test or two, to see if she may get credit for subjects she is not covering in AP.
âWe had our first session with our school counselor yesterday. It was a good and productive meeting. She confirmed S20 would have the most rigor checked, but also asked him to put more thoughts into his senior year course election. His current choices can give people a âstem kid turned humanityâ feel:â
Just thought Iâd say, in case there is a worry (were you being playful?), those STEM kids who can show growth and development in the other content areas can be received really well because of it. It worked for my oldest, whose interviewer marveled at the humanities and arts interests he had developed and engaged in at the HS level. Gave him a warm and hearty âthumbs-upâ for it, saying the STEM kids all wanted to show that they could calculate, calculate, calculate, when the interviewer understood that if one could not, the university was probably not one which appealed to the student anyway.
Iâm all for it.
@janiemiranda the CB book or Barronâs is fine for practice chem subject test. The question style is different from AP so do have them take one. (I tutor chem and help students with both)
My D20 is taking Math 2, Chemistry and Biology right after school gets out. I so wish we knew she should have taken Math after Pre-Calc, it just wasnât on our radar, she is going to have to do some serious review. Sheâs in IB Chemistry and Biology so hoping she wonât also do a lot of prep for those as well.
S20 took Math 1 and 2 (both are not needed but he took âaccidentallyâ 
long story) and Physics in sophomore year with scores of 800, 800, 760. After the test we were told that the colleges that require 2 tests will only consider one of the 2 math tests so effectively he has a 800 and 760. Think he is done with subject tests, does he need a humanities/lit test?
@hs2020dad
Unless he is interested in non-stem major, I donât think he needs another non-stem subject test. Most of the schools we toured (stem-heavy) require Math II (or I, but most kids who took Math Sub take Math II it seems) and one other science. Great job!
This link was posted in another thread. It shows what types of jobs UCB grads got straight after school with different majors. https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2018Majors
@whataboutcollege I think you were asking about cognitive science as an option other than CS. You might be interested in where the Berkeley Cognitive Science grads landed jobs:
https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2018CognitiveScience.pdf
@lkg4answers
Thanks for the link! Would cognitive science be a major/concentration that has width but not enough depth?
@makemesmart it definitely depends on where you go to school and what types of courses are offered in the department. As was discussed several pages back, the major often has many different emphases, each looking like a completely different major - neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, AI/computational.
It is one of those majors that wasnât around back in the day so people are often unfamiliar with it.
@Waiting2exhale You have a very good point S20âs current requests contain AP English Lit; AP Econ Micro/Macro; AP Euro; AP US Gov (He was thinking about AP Psych - closer to AI?, but heard it is a very boring class). Counselor said these would be lots of heavy reading in these classes, she asked him to make sure he really want and is ready for it.
@lkg4answers Thanks for the link and will send to S20. I think he needs to be doing more future planning.
@janiemiranda S17 took Chem subject test after AP Chem and did well. S20 took it after honors Chem and needed some prep to do well. Students should take a practice test to see if there are areas to study.
I was thinking S20 didnât need any subject tests, it doesnât seem like a lot of schools want them. Am I making a mistake?
@NYC2018nyc My D20 wasnât planning on taking any and then we went on the college board site and started researching the various schools and saw that one of her reach schools required them. A couple of other schools on her list âsuggestedâ them but didnât require them. I recommend your S20 go on the college board site and call up all the schools he is looking at and see what their policy is.
Thanks! We had a list from his guidance counselor but maybe itâs time to look again!
Anyone else dealing with summer program disappointment? DS20 applied to multiple summer programs (I actively encouraged him to do this - thinking it will give a good dose of the application process and also reasonably confident of at least one program). He applied to six programs using the reach/target/safety approach - got rejected to most of them (waitlisted for one and waiting for another which is a reach). Itâs a big disappointment for him after spending a lot of time - I guess its a bit of practice for things to come in next year maybe. I hope he takes the right lessons and donât let this disappointment affect him negatively.
The biggest disappointment is a local univ program (safety) - he has strong stats for that program and there were 12 spots - he know 6 of the selected candidates (he knew them from kindergarten and happy for them but canât help comparing himself and feel that he should have been accepted as well). He is trying to let it go and concentrate on the rest of the semester but it was a rough results season for him. Lesson learned for us parents: set the expectations right and make sure the safety is actually a safety - seems like history is of no use, competition has become fierce and there is an element of luck/
Very sorry he didnât get in! What a bummer. But yes good practice for next year. Heâll know to select better safety choices. My kid only applied to 1 program, a reach, and miraculously got in. Her backup plan was a lifeguard job. Has your son thought about a job? Lifeguarding looks pretty good because they have to be certified. Also what about a summer immersion that isnât as competitive to get in? Wake Forest and Clemson both still have openings. @hs2020dad