<p>I guess these questions are mostly directed toward one of the MIT admissions employees that I see occasionally post on this forum, but if anyone else has thoughts on this, I'd be happy to hear them as well. MIT has been my dream school for a few years now, but it wasn't until recently that I thought to check the requirements for application, and saw that it actually specified which SAT IIs you had to take. My problem is that I'm now a senior in high school and currently in AP chemistry, but the last science class I took before this year was AP physics as a sophmore.</p>
<p>I don't remember enough physics to be able to do even reasonably well on the SAT II, but my chemistry class won't have covered much of the SAT II material by the November or December SAT test date. I was planning to self-study the physics material during the next two months, but school is busier than I thought it would be. Now I'm thinking that it may be better for me to take the SAT II in chemistry. Will the admissions officers look at my transcipt when they consider my SAT II scores? Would they see that I am in the middle of taking chemistry, if I choose to take that test, and be a little more lenient? The potential problem with that, however, is that I did take an honors-level chemistry in sophmore year (not a serious class, but it would look like I should know chemistry already).</p>
<p>Or would it be better to take the SAT II in physics, and hope that my A in the class and AP score would demonstrate that I did know physics at one point, even if I'm a little rusty? I'm leaning toward the chemistry route, to take off the burden of self-studying physics when I have college applications this semester, along with regular sports and extracurriculars, but I don't want to look lazy or incompetent. My chemistry teacher doesn't think I can expect more than a 500-600 with what we'll have covered by November, and I'm thinking about not applying EA now because of it. I wish I had known about this earlier. Any wisdom would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>You should take the Physics test because you just came out of that class. I don't understand why you think that you wouldn't do well on it, considering that apparently you did well in both the class and on the exam. Of course, you'd need to study quite a bit to refresh your memory.</p>
<p>Ultimately it's your decision. If you think that you can do the chemistry test with an honors class behind you, and some self-study, then do that, but I still think that the physics option would be less time consuming. Which do you think you're better in? There's also the biology test, which you seem to have overlooked.</p>
<p>There are sample questions and free Subject Test Preparation Booklets which include practice tests available on the College Board website. Why don't you take a little time to review those and see how you do? If you do reasonably well on the Physics sample test, it might be a better choice to schedule yourself for some review (surely you can fit in a few hours of review for something this important, even though school is busier than you thought it would be) and take the Physics test this fall, since you've already been exposed to the material.</p>
<p>You probably realize that, while the MIT adcom does review each application in context, they don't need to "be lenient" in order to assemble an entire class of qualified matriculants. Most applicants will have similar qualifications and similar pressures to yours -- they're all doing academics and sports and ECs and other applications too -- so pleading "I'm too busy" probably won't matter. If your Chem teacher thinks you may not do better than 500-600, that might be a clue to beef up on the Physics and go that route. (Could you ask your Physics teacher from last year for a similar assessment?)</p>
<p>As you may know, you can sign up for a Subject Test and then on the day of the test you can choose to take a different one. So if, for instance, you signed up now to take the Physics exam, and decided at test time that you really were doing well on the Chem practice exams and wanted to do that instead, you could just elect to take the Chem test that day.</p>
<p>I have a very similar problem to yours, except with the complication of only having been taught a third of what is on the physics test. I'm self-studying the physics, but then again, I started in the summer.</p>
<p>I guess if I were you, I would take physics. If you learned all the stuff on the test last year and did well, it shouldn't take more than a Saturday or two to brush up on everything you forgot. If you're still nervous, you could always take them both - only $8 more!</p>