My entire family and other people I know are pressuring me to retake my Math 2 subject test, after I received a 770. I certainly do not mind studying for it. My problem is that Yale requires you to send in all you test scores…would retaking a 770 be considered overkill? I am fairly confident I could nab the 800 this time around.
Thanks!
PS, I intend on majoring in economics and perhaps minor in math, just so you know
Yes, it would be considered overkill/obsessive. Your current score is fine—once scores have reached a certain range, the exact number makes no difference and won’t determine whether or not you get into any of the top schools.
Use the time that would be wasted taking it again getting more sleep and playing your favorite video game, i.e, you have earned the privilege of relaxation and fun. Well done!
my college counselor is essentially on her knees begging me to retake it. It seriously won’t take that much time to prepare for it, and I like math so it won’t be absolute torture. my counselor said that i need a 800 to go where I want to go, so is she right? she has sent many kids to their dream schools so… and btw, I know it sounds like I’m being stubborn and disagreeing with you, but it’s just that everyone is telling me to retake so i just dont know @awcntdb @planner
No.
There is so much more that goes into a Yale application other than test scores. Once you hit a certain level, which you are at, the AO’s move on to other things. You are much better served putting the time and energy into crafting awesome essays. Whether your application to Yale results in an acceptance/waitlist/rejection, it will not be due to a 770 vs. 800.
Good luck.
Listen to @awcntdb and @planner. My son took the SAT I when there was a particularly tough curve on Math – he got one question wrong and got a 760 along with 800s in CR and W. He took SAT II US History and got a 780, along with 800s in Math 2 and Physics.
Some classmates wanted him to retake History and the SAT I so that he could have perfect scores (well, if you Superscore AND retest higher). His GC, who the following year left the school to work in private ($$$$) practice, knew better. It makes you look like you have a perfection problem, or overemphasize stats, or don’t have more productive things to do with your time. Fwiw, my son had better things to do, and didn’t retake. “One and done.” Beware of people whose interests might not be aligned with yours. There is something to be said for taking the tests and, assuming that you weren’t under the weather on that particular Saturday morning, owning the score.
Your GC is not giving you good advice. I’m reluctant to be more blunt than that. I believe that elite schools would prefer an applicant who made his peace with a 770 (the horror! the humanity!) to one who retook it and got an 800, not to mention someone who retook it and got a 750.
Ditto for my sons. My older DS was also one and done with darn near identical scores listed here. Only difference was 790 in US History. But that means zilch: 780, 790, 800 are all the same.
And with the SAT and subject tests, the Williams College director of admissions wrote on their website last year or the year before that a 760 and 780 was the same to them as a 800 because one or two questions difference does not indicate a higher intelligence and is more an indicator of which test you got re the curve as the earlier poster stated. The question is can you consistently score 750 and higher? Well you blew through that hurdle with ease.
And as for my older DS, he got in where he wanted and he was going for the stratosphere. Clearly his scores were fine. And to really send this home, my second DS a year later did the same with scarily similar scores to his brother - over 4 tests only a 10-point aggregate difference. They are both where they want to be.
So you now have three examples of students who got scores like yours and stopped taking tests and did just fine. And yes, my DSs used the time to play video games, which I was happy with, as they are working their buns off now.
@awcntdb @IxnayBob your arguments match what I believe, and I’m glad your kids got such wonderful scores. Thank you for your input! However, my 770 is in Math 2, meaning that my percentile is much lower than someone who got a 770 in history or another subject. In addition, I’m an asian male, so I fear that ad coms would expect me to get an 800 on math 2. Does the lower percentile, my race, and my intended major change any of that (not trying to sound racist lol, just confronting a sad perception many have about me).
I did get an 800 for the regular SAT math section…but I don’t think that carries the same weight.
Actually you have it reversed, but the logic does not jump out at first.
So many students get 800s on the Math 2 test that a 800 only gets you in the 71% percentile I believe. Meaning a 800 Math 2 is no longer something that really distinguishes as much as people think.
However, few get 800 on the math SAT 1. And the reason the Sat 1 800 stands out is you cannot miss any. On the Math 2, one can miss or skip up to 7, I believe, and still get 800.
One caveat I thought about: The only school I might consider retaking for is Cal Tech, and that advice is for everyone. I think the average there is 800. If not applying the Cal Tech, have fun instead.
@whiterwalt7, in a more general sense, you sometimes have to say to yourself: if that’s what they really care about. who needs them? My son and I had a somewhat related discussion about employment after college. He took Math 230 and didn’t get an A (it"s a notoriously tough course, especially for a non-Math major). He was worried about how future employers would think about it, saying that nobody reads transcripts and that a B+ there was less valuable than an A in Rocks for Jocks. I said that I doubted that, but if it is true, well, who wants to work for people too lazy to read the transcript and/or too stupid to know the difference?
Spend the time thinking about essays, doing something that floats your boat, playing a sport, canoodling with someone who excites you, etc.
ETA: PS for the record, DS is much more mellow about grades now.
^^^ Yep.
@whitewait7: My son was accepted to Yale with a 750 on the SAT Math 2 Subject test and my daughter was accepted to Harvard with a 740. There are many other ways to prove your competency in math without retaking the test. For example: scoring on 5 on the AP Calc BC test, or getting a 95+ in math for all four years of high school – both of which my kids did. If you happen to be on the same path, I wouldn’t bother retaking the test.
Do.Not. Retake. Its fine.
Colleges are not cross-referencing SAT subject test scores with percentiles; they are looking at the scores only. To the vast majority of colleges, a 770 in M2=770 in Physics=770 in Chem=800 in M2, etc. You are really overthinking this.
@skieurope is correct. College’s DO NOT care about percentages; they care about your highest score out of 800 – and that’s what they plug into their formula to calculate your Academic Index (AI): http://www.collegeconfidential.com/academic_index_calculator/
@whiterwalt7 For what it’s worth, I’m an Asian female from California who got into Yale RD this year with a 750 in Math II and not a single SAT II score above 770 (which I received in Chinese, my parents’ native language LOL). To make matters worse, during my freshman year, I was very naive and took SAT II Biology after only taking REGULAR biology and didn’t study much because freshman year me thought that I wouldn’t have to send all my SAT scores to colleges. I ENDED UP GETTING A 630. A 6 freaking 30. I didn’t retake it because I enrolled in Chemistry Honors and AP Chemistry during my sophomore and junior years and much of my biology knowledge faded away. To my parents’ chagrin, I had to send the 630 to schools that required all SAT scores like Stanford, Penn, Yale, the UC’s (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD), and Duke. But I ended up getting into all of them!! (except for Duke where I was waitlisted).
My point is THERE IS NO NEED TO RETAKE THE 770! Don’t worry too much! Focus on making yourself distinctive as an applicant in other ways!
@whiterwalt7, when your college application process is done and you look back, you want to have no regrets. A 770 is a high bar, and I am sorry to go against the grain here, but for some people, that 800 is just a sweet spot that they would have regrets not going for if they’d repeatedly earned it on practice tests. This is a personal decision, not one that posters here can make for you. In the name of full disclosure, I took the SATs once and the Subject SATs once. I earned an 800 on my SAT math section (2330 total SAT) and all 800s on my three subject SATS, including Math II (others were Chemistry and French) – Honestly, I think I would have taken either/both again had I not earned those 800s – I am a white middle-class guy from the Northeast who wants to major in math/science and I put together what I thought was a true and solid application like everyone else. I got into Yale RD with no hooks, it is a very very (!) competitive process and again, it is a personal decision, have no regrets whatever you decide because it’ll be all over at this time next year. Wishing you much success!
I’d say don’t bother retaking it; 770 is (obviously) a great score. In my opinion, if you get above a 720 on something, you shouldn’t retake it. The situation is a bit of a Catch-22. If you get a low score, schools might wish you had done better, but if you retake it and do marginally better, schools will be concerned that you are too perfectionist and retook an entire SAT II test for microscopic improvement. (That’s a real thing–being too “intense.” Admissions committees joke, “Maybe this kid should have put standardized testing in her activities section.”)
SAT II tests are very weird for a bunch of reasons. First, scores are subjective. Statistically speaking, 770 on Math II is the 84th percentile (out of a self-selecting group of very good math students). On the other hand, in a test category like Literature, the same score is in the 97th percentile, because there’s more disparity in people who take it. A 770 on Math I is in the 98th percentile for the same reason. Meanwhile, a 770 on Chinese is only the 27th percentile of scores, because everyone who has the gall to take the Chinese Listening SAT test can actually speak Chinese pretty well.
Secondly, they’re not a perfect reflection of curriculum–just look at the amazing difference between the AP World History and SAT World History tests. Colleges know that, and I think your score is more than sufficient. I only got a 760 on Math II. 
(source: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SAT_subject_tests_percentile_ranks.pdf)
THIS IS ABSURD!!! You clearly want to retake the SAT, so just do it. I’m hoping you will take these next few words to heart: I just graduated from Yale, so I know how it works.
If you’re spending your time trying to get a perfect score, YOU ARE NOT WHAT YALE WANTS!! They’re not going to accept or reject you for a 30 point spread. If you’re interesting and spend your time volunteering and doing interesting activities, rather than sitting in your room studying for a standardized test, they DO WANT YOU!
Clearly you think an 800 will make a difference otherwise you wouldn’t be posting here and fighting back with the other commenters, so you might as well take the test so that if you don’t get in, you won’t kick yourself forever thinking that it was because you didn’t try for a better score.
I interview 3 students each year in alumni interviews, and so far none of them have gotten in. They were all Class President, math league, yada yada. When I went to the admitted student’s reception last year, I was blown away. One of the Southern California admits had discovered a star. The other was a fencing champion and yet another was working with esteemed professional physicists on a new theory in mathematics.
These were the students that Yale salivated over. Not the ones that were worried about 30 points on the SAT II