DD17 recently took the Japanese subject test and received a score of 650.
As a reference, 650 in SAT Japanese is ranked as 25 percentile.
A little bit background here: Two years ago, DD started a weekly 45 min Skype lessons with an instructor based in Japan. These sessions are not designed to be academic lessons, more like informal conversations. As her lessons focus more on speaking, her reading and writing abilities far lag behind her listening ability as shown by her SAT Japanese score. She has been taking Spanish since 8th grade and is in AP Spanish this year, so meeting college foreign language requirement isn’t a problem. She is thinking of majoring in East Asian Language and Culture in college.
Our dilemma now is if she should submit her SAT Japanese subject test score to the schools she is applying to? In addition to several UC campuses, she will also be applying to a some LACs, including Pomona and Swarthmore. We are worried that this score may hurt her chance even though she is a self studied non-heritage speaker. Any comment or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Submitting a Subject Test in which the applicant is not a native or heritage-speaker is fine. So you’re really asking the wrong question. The question should be whether it is beneficial for your daughter to submit a 650.
Few colleges these days require/recommend Subject Tests. Most LAC’s don’t. Pomona and Swarthmore will “consider” them, and top UC campuses will “recommend” them. A 650 is a good score for most colleges outside of the tippy top. Whether you/she think it will enhance the application is up to you.
Colleges will not concern themselves with percentiles. 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. On the flip side, your daughter will not get bonus points solely for taking the test as a non-heritage speaker.
not a factor in admission, but perhaps when it comes to selecting a school … the 650 might earn credit but it will vary school to school.
for admission at schools like Pomona or Swarthmore a sub-700 score isn’t going to help much. but it might at the next-tier schools like Occidental.
there are articles out there that bemoan the fact that so many heritage speakers take these tests … what’s the point (like an 800 from a Japanese student is going to help in admissions) … and it really does skew the percentiles such that they don’t mean anything.
Self learning a language is a great feat and would likely to take considerable time and effort. Why she did it? Is it her passion or is it related to her passion? Anime? Would it be possible to write about it in her admission essay answers which the SAT Japanese score may make more relevant?
I think she can just list Japanese under one of foreign language abilities (and possibly could mention her initiative/interest in the language somewhere else in the application). That will do it. I wouldn’t submit the SAT subject score. Why take the risk.
Thank you all for your replies. To answer your question @ScultorDad, yes, part of DD’s motivation to learn Japanese was her passion for anime. She also enjoys learning different languages. She had wanted to take two foreign languages courses but that was against her school’s rule for freshman/sophomore. She didn’t have any room in her schedule for a second language class last year. This year, she is taking another language class in addition to AP Spanish.
One of her essays for UC is about her language journey, including Japanese. Her Common App Essay is about her love for languages. Hence we thought it would be relevant for her to take the Japanese subject test and submit the score.
Otherwise, at UC, SAT subject tests may in some cases be substituted for high school course requirements, but since the student already has an AP level foreign language course, she would not need a foreign language subject test for this purpose.
Perhaps maybe at some college, a Japanese SAT subject test score may get advanced placement in Japanese language courses. But it is likely that the department will have its own placement testing for those with some knowledge of the language even if no test scores are provided.
I would absolutely submit that score! For a self-studied, non-heritage speaker, it is excellent! The percentile is low because she was competing against heritage speakers learning their ancestral tongue, and those who studied it for years. The fact that she took it at all will help her, and ad comms will know what a challenging language it is. (My son has studied it for two years in college and it is brutal!) A 650 is an excellent score for a student in your daughter’s situation.