Poor SAT II - kiss of death?

<p>You have gotten some good advice from everyone else, but I wanted to clarify what Papa Chicken said about score reports only containing your 6 most recent scores. I had emailed College Board a while back, asking about score reports and Score Choice, among other things. The reply I got said "Your SAT Program score report is cumulative. That means that it includes your test scores for as many as six SAT I: Reasoning Tests and six SAT II: Subject Tests, plus your responses to the Student Descriptive Questionnaire....The latest test scores will be sent."</p>

<p>Regardless, in the OP's case, I think taking 2 or 3 more SAT II's and getting strong scores will be all that is necessary. Especially since your D is not interested in the sciences, having a low Chemistry score as an "extra" score (not one of the required 2/3) will probably not affect her admissions. Because of this experience, before she decides to take any more SAT II's, have her look through prep books at the bookstore or library to make sure she knows the material.</p>

<p>yes..... make sure to prep!!!</p>

<p>Oh, yeah - learned that lesson!</p>

<p>Susan:
Do you think it is necesssary to do three SATIIs these days, didn't the sun just set on the SATII Writing, so that most schools are requiring two other subject SATII's..or is there still a group of schools that want three tests? I think Duke decided on two only now since Writing is incorporated into the SATI and I believe this is the trend at Dartmouth and others to reduce to requiring two...
Although taking three increases the odds of picking out your top two scores and using them...</p>

<p>My older D was admitted to an Ivy with 5 SAT IIs, the two lowest being a 560 and a 670. </p>

<p>Check each school's requirement. D#2 is chucking the SATs in favor of the ACT.</p>

<p>There are still a few places that want three SAT II's - check with individual schools to make sure you meet their requirements. I know Yale and MIT, among others, are still requiring three SAT II's (MIT is requiring three SAT II's regardless of which SAT you take, but next year, when everyone will have taken the "new" SAT, they will only require 2)</p>

<p>Faline asked: </p>

<p>"Susan:
Do you think it is necesssary to do three SATIIs these days, didn't the sun just set on the SATII Writing, so that most schools are requiring two other subject SATII's..or is there still a group of schools that want three tests? I think Duke decided on two only now since Writing is incorporated into the SATI and I believe this is the trend at Dartmouth and others to reduce to requiring two...
Although taking three increases the odds of picking out your top two scores and using them..."</p>

<p>Faline,
I was refecting upon experiences the past two years as both years my own kids were applicants and I realize there are changes this year because the SAT2 Writing was basically incorrporated in the SATs (and my kids took SAT2 Writing as one of their SAT2s). I'm not positive what each school will require this year and would advise to check with each one but maybe they just require two since they already have the writing. But the point I was making is pretty much the same....when they required three, you could take four and pick your three best (they get all four scores but would count only three and take the three highest). Well, if they only want two and one you got was kinda low, take three or four total and then they'll use your best ones. Another possibility is to retake the SAT2 with the low-ish score and try to improve it. My older D took four subject tests. Two of them she chose to retake in October of senior year. One she improved significantly and one went down a little. In the end, while they got all the scores, the three highest counted and those were all right. My second child only had ONE school that required SAT2s. She took three tests. Two she scored very high on and one was good but not stellar. That was in math but her math SAT was quite a bit higher and she had accelerated in math (two years beyond her grade level). She was applying for musical theater. She did not want to redo that one test because it did not seem to matter that much (granted it was quite a bit higher than the OP D's question about the Chem test) because everything else was strong and it did not seem worth it to her. She took all her SATs (two sittings) and SAT2s (three tests on one day) in spring of TENTH grade. She opted to graduate a year early and applied to college the following fall and never did another test again. So, that is another thing, her scores were all from tenth grade! Ironically the school she is ending up at is the ONE school on her list that asked for SAT2s (other schools saw these scores as they were on the SAT report but none asked for them) and she did get selected as a University Scholar at this college and won a substantial scholarship as well so it is an example of not beating your head up over ONE SAT2 score if the rest is good. </p>

<p>Susan</p>

<p>Helpful to have your examples to ponder Soozievt, so thanks. By the way, you are SuzieVeet in my head and for some reason I couldn't decipher Vermont out of your screen name. But my favorite is the Mom of two Incas, in my mind I segue to Peruvian motifs when she is the Mom of Two in California....I am impaired, but this is how I get my kicks!
hope your girls are going to have another great year ahead.</p>

<p>Faline, yeah, Mom of two Incas is how I saw her name as well. My posting name on CC has been a topic of discussion before as well. For some reason people either see "Viet" in it and ask if I am Vietnamese (no, I am Caucasian) or they see "soviet" and ask if I am Russian (nyet) or they ask if I am a "vet", definitely am not an animal person. When I signed up onto CC, I entered my posting name as "SoozieVT" but for some odd reason, it came out as "soovievt" and so it looks very different and reads differently without the capital letters. </p>

<p>My husband came up with this screenname when we first got the internet over 8 years ago. He, as well as those from my childhood, call me Susie/Suzy and so that is the Soozie and I live in Vermont so that was the VT. But on CC, you are not the only one who sees it as Suzieveet or Sooviet or some other concoction. But hey, I've been called worse things in my life. </p>

<p>Thanks for the good wishes for my girls. </p>

<p>Susan</p>