My D is scheduled to take Bio and Math2 on Saturday. The problem is that these last few weeks have been so hectic with AP exams, finals and final projects, she just hasn’t had any chance to review. I’m tempted to tell her to skip them and take in August. Is there anyway to do this without paying again?
Also, would it make more sense for her to take these and see how it goes and just go again in August if the scores are bad? Can you choose which tests to send like you do for the regular SAT?
My kids found that the studying they were doing for APs was enough studying for the SAT subjects tests - they planned them to more or less overlap. (Older son was way beyond Math 2, but forgot to take it when he should have), younger son just isn’t that good at Math tests, and shouldn’t have taken the Math 2, so he ended up taking a different subject test in June when he got his not so good score.) The both found APUSH and US history subject tests had lots of overlap. Younger son did Bio the same year he did AP Bio, older son did physics the same year he did AP Physics. The wording is confusing on some college websites - but we figured if they required two (or three) subjects tests we only needed to send scores for those two or three tests.
Well, you don’t pay the full price, but you do pay a $29 change fee, and you don’t get your money back from this Saturday’s tests.
I would say yes, I would also ask “what does she want to do?” I personally don’t think there’s so much prep to do for Subject Tests when it’s the end of the year and one already is prepping/has prepped for finals.
Yes, assuming she’s not applying to Georgetown or Cornell, when they seem to want all scores.
Is she just completing biology and precalculus now? If so, and she is doing well in those courses, seems like whatever review she does for the final exams in those courses will be the same as for the SAT subject tests. I.e. she should not need additional review, unless her high school courses are deficient.
Thanks everyone! She will take these two and then think about August only if we need to. I would really really love for her to be finally done with all this testing. I honestly don’t understand why colleges need SAT2’s if they already have the act, the GPA and the AP scores. Sheesh!
I have a completely different take. I think kids do need to study for these. Not all Bio classes cover all of the concepts on the SAT 2 test and, depending on where the student is in math, review needs to be done for Math 2. Our S19 is in BC Calc now and needs to prep for Math 2. He is rusty on some of the problems. Plus, there’s the added pressure on that test to get an 800.
He just took the SAT 2 history test after completing a very good APUSH class where almost everyone gets 5s. The SAT 2 is a different test. It tests details about history. It doesn’t test trends like the AP. So, sure, he had lots of knowledge of American history but he found lots of questions on practice SAT2s where he didn’t know the answers. And you really can’t guess if you don’t know anything about a certain battle or treaty. He took the test and did ok but he wants to take it again in Aug so he can have more time to review practice tests.
I’d definitely say that the student needs to take the AP equivalent class before an SAT2 but I would also say that taking practice tests is important.
If the schools don’t need all scores, I would send her in and have her give the tests a shot in June. At the very least, she will experience what the tests are like. If the schools don’t require all scores, you just choose the scores you want to send.
If your kid is prepping for Subject Tests while taking APs, then yes, s/he will need a lot of prep work. Subject Tests cover HS material; AP classes are college material, which for the sciences, will be less breadth than is tested on the Subject Tests. So if the OP’s daughter is taking the Subject Test with AP Bio, then yes, some prep will be required to review material from a year or 2 ago. But if taking the Subject Test after a regular HS bio class with a final, particularly if the teacher preps for the Subject Test, minimal additional effort should be needed. It seems only on College Confidential do people this an AP class is needed to do well on a Subject Test - it’s not. Now, in the case of a subject such as USH, students generally take APUSH in lieu of regular USH. But for bio and chem (and Physics C), the AP course is usually the second course in the discipline.
Of course he’s rusty; he should have taken M2 after pre-calc as the CB advises.
Contradiction here? Seems like math level 2 would be easier and fresher if taken when the student is completing precalculus, although an AP calculus course presumably requires practice in precalculus math to do calculus problems, so forgetting things may not be as much of an issue compared to not taking any math at all for a year.
My kids looked at the book of old SAT subject tests to see if there were any gaps. APUSH students also have to pass the Regents in NY, so they were doing lots of varied reviews. More for AP if you took the subject test in May more for the Regents if you took it in June. My Bio kid did no extra studying. My physics kid reviewed some of the simpler stuff that he hadn’t done for a while.
The recommendation generally is to take Math 2 at the end of pre-Calc. My older son forgot to do it as he was a sophomore at the time and college testing wasn’t on our radar.
Sorry everyone. At our high school, kids generally take the SAT 2 right after they’ve taken that AP except for Math 2. Yes we dropped the ball. S19 was so beat after soph year that we bagged Math 2 and have kept putting it off. Summer after soph year was spent studying for SAT. Then, the crazy school year started and he didn’t want to take Math 2 in the winter. He will be reviewing and taking it in Aug. oh well.
However, some AP courses are not well matched to SAT subject tests. The “new” AP physics courses are the most obvious example. AP physics 1 and 2 each cover about half of the usual topics, so a student who takes just AP physics 1 is less ready for the SAT subject test in physics than one who takes a good regular high school physics course. AP physics C is even more limited in topic coverage.
In addition, SAT subject tests are supposed to cover high school level material, not AP or college frosh level material. Needing the AP course (if it has matching topic coverage) for the SAT subject test basically means that the high school’s courses are of inferior quality (which seems unlikely for most of the forum demographic whose kids are in academically elite private schools or high SES public schools).
To answer this question one should know a bit about the student’s high school: the rigor, the expectations etc. In our high school no student can just walk in the SAT 2 after the honors class and do above 700. They need to cover the material not taught (for example plants in bio) and also review the materials not included in the finals ( the teachers usually leave some staff out). I help students prepare as volunteer and I see it often. Another example in Chemistry they do learn all the theory about acids and bases and lots of calculations and theory but if you ask them to quickly tell which acids are weak or strong they do not remember. They walk in the test and the best they can get is a 650. Then they prep with Barrons and get in the high 700s. They do not need to do tons of work, just learn a few more facts and “put all things together”. Usually a couple of weeks. The students that go through the corresponding AP do a lot better for two reasons. First in our school honors are prerequisites for APs so by the time kids finish with AP they have two years of the subject and therefore more experience and time to digest the material. When they go to review it is just much easier for them to draw the connections and recall the facts. Second, the AP teachers know that a lot of students will try for the SAT 2 so they give them more help during the year. Math and physics are a little different though as most kids do take them after precalc/physics junior year and the expectations are higher for those classes.
So it is not only in CC that people think that AP is needed for the SAT 2.
Sure, SAT covers HS material, but as @am9799 points out above, it’s all relative to the specific HS and what topics they decide to cover in those classes (honors or otherwise). I have twins attending different schools so perhaps my experience may provide additional help to others who will be prepping for the SAT subject tests going forward.
During their freshman year, D was taking Honors Biology and S was taking the one biology course that everyone in his school takes (taught at the college level, but not AP per se). In the early spring, both took the diagnostic test in the Barrons book and and D did not crack a 600 and S got somewhere in the low 600’s, if I remember correctly. Going over the Barron’s book, D came across many topics that her school class did not cover, and S came across concepts that were covered in this class, but not as in depth. So they started prepping with the Barrons book (a lot of prep time went in for D, and not as much for S). I guess if they were targeting a score in the low 700’s they could have gotten away with not prepping as much (more true for S I suspect), but this being their first standardized test ever, they wanted to see what they could achieve. 2 weeks before the test, they took one of the practice tests and D got in the low 700’s and s got in the high 700’s. They took the next 2 weeks to hone in on their review and net net, both achieved their objective.
A lot of work went into it for sure (more so for D), but the time and effort was worth it for the high score at the end. Some would argue that you don’t need to strive for that 800 as you just need to show your proficiency in the subject, and I agree with that. Each will have to decide what that number is though.
DS20 did USH subject in May right before his APUSH exam, as that was recommended by his APUSH teacher, he did a couple practice tests and found out there were many specific questions about historic events that are purely memory based. He didn’t know about his APUSH exam score yet but thinks he could get a five (who knows); he got 750 on the subject test, which is just at the 81%. He is not happy about the result but I am hoping it is good enough. More prep time would definitely help but we think the returns would not worth the loss of some summer fun.
We’re getting way off-topic from the OP’s question. Still,
He should be jumping for joy. A 750 is a great score.
It is important to understand that for several subjects, the percentiles are depressed because so few colleges request Subject Tests, that the ones that do are the ultra selective ones. As a result, it is the high achieving kids taking the tests. No AO is sitting on the floor cross-referencing scores with percentiles.
@galentjill. @skieurope is correct that one should ignore the percentages due to the high-achieving subset of students taking them.
Rule of thumb I’ve picked up here is that for most tests 700+ is respectable and worth sending. 750+ checks all the boxes and no need to test further. The exception would be Math II where CS or Engineering aspiring majors should try for 780-800, especially if they are looking to top 10 tech schools. Statistically, the literature test is one of the hardest to achieve a top score.
@skieurope@mamaedefamilia Thats very helpful! I agree that this is a small part of the package. We have the rest of the package pretty well in hand. I want to avoid having these annoying tests mess it all up!
