<p>I agree with cookiemom. The SAT is administered in early June. Most schools do not end until late June, so your son would be still an 8th grader.</p>
<p>He can take the SATII in the fall of 9th grade if you’re concerned. I think my S took the SATII fairly late, after he’d taken a whole bunch of college classes.
He did fine. Yours should, too. The good thing about waiting is that he can combine the SATII-Math with another test, or even two other tests. Each is only one hour.</p>
<p>Kelowna, please do not worry at all about the SAT II’s! I can essentially guarantee you that your son will do extremely well, regardless of when he takes them. </p>
<p>The advice to take Math II after pre-calc applies for people who are not naturally mathematically oriented. People who are mathematically oriented do not forget the things that are covered by Math II. They may forget some things from pre-calc, over a period of years, yes, but if any of those show up on the test, it’s very rare. (OK, I admit, this “universal rule” has been generated based on 3 people in my immediate family + 2 good friends + marite’s son–but I doubt that there are many counter-examples out there.)</p>
<p>You may come from a culture where admissions tests were difficult and important. The SAT I and SAT II’s are not anywhere in the same league of difficulty as tests in some other countries. Your son will find them easy! Don’t build them up excessively!</p>
<p>When it comes to the math subject GRE (as opposed to the math component of the general GRE), then I think there is actually an advantage to taking the subject GRE shortly after the fundamental courses have been covered, or else devoting a brief period to a serious review. That depends whether NSF and other fellowship organizations are willing to accept scores that are about 3 years old. </p>
<p>In my experience, it is quite easy to forget some of the tricks for solving elementary differential equations, if you have been pre-occupied with Galois theory and Hausdorff spaces. It does come back quickly–and if your son has been a TA for the diff eq course, then he will know the tricks forever. But if he has only worked through them once, and then gone on to other topics, he may not be as quick as needed for the GRE.</p>
<p>Thanks!
Marite- nice to hear from you .
QuantMech - thanks, and yes he is one of those kids.
Son is absolutely not worried about it, it is I, his guidance councellor 
He is registered to take it June 6th. He did look (in the spare time between his game playing sessions ) at the Collegeboard book and missed statistics question. We have ordered Barron’s book, he will go through it and we will hope for the best.
He is absolutely capable of scoring 800 and I hope he does. I, his GC, want to have it out of the way. Free some time for when he is a junior, or maybe make it possible to graduate after 11th grade. Who knows…though I really like that IB diploma
GRE? - I hope to be away, far away then…Hawaii maybe No, Peru sounds better :)</p>
<p>To add to what QuantMech says, a lot of my close friends from childhood were this advanced and they waited until the end of their Junior years to take the MathIIC exam.
Their preparation for the exam: Bare minimum. Glanced over the site briefly to see what was on it, maybe spent 10 mins top reviewing really quickly to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. We all walked into our SAT II’s cold.
Their response: “LOL.”
Their scores: 800s.
If your son is like my friends, he will be more than fine.</p>
<p>Just have him take a practice test; it only takes 50 minutes. Given what has been said above, he will probably score a solid 800 (given the generous curve you can get 8-10 wrong and still get an 800). Then you (and he) will feel calm and confident.</p>
<p>Also, if he does have a few holes in his knowledge, a smart math kid can fill them in with 2 weeks to look over the material.</p>
<p>re “not naturally math oriented” comment. My son the math major IS math oriented, but the Math SAT II still required more prep than he did to get an 800. Only people good at math will bother with this test. The SAT was 800’s as a senior.</p>
<p>It is possible that the prep that is needed is test-taking skills rather than math knowledge?</p>
<p>Does your son enjoy taking tests? My math-oriented son did, and did them well as a result. I see no harm in your son taking the test, whether he’s an 8th or 9th grader. He can retake it if he doesn’t do well, and no admissions officer will think less of him for the retake.</p>
<p>^That’s both of my kids. They actually enjoy taking the SAT!</p>
<p>He’ll be called an eighth grader, his scores will vanish rapidly because they are counted as eighth grade scores, and thus he should take care to preserve his scores. </p>
<p>[SAT</a> Younger than 13](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Additional SAT Registration Options – SAT Suite) </p>
<p>And he should go for it. He’ll score just fine. Been there, done that.</p>
<p>Happy to report - 800 :)</p>
<p>Woohoo!!! Congrats.</p>
<p>Cool! It’s nice when they do that. :)</p>
<p>Terrific. Now you need to petition for the score to be kept so that it shows up on his report when other scores are recorded. Do it promptly.
Congrats!</p>
<p>not surprising, but congrats anyway ;)</p>
<p>Yee haw! S decided to wait to take his Math II test until the June of his sophomore year, at which point he’d completed AP Calc BC. He also nailed it.</p>
<p>What’s your S’s plan going forward? My S completed an online (for logistical reasons) JHU CTY course in Linear Algebra this year, scoring an A. He thinks it made a difference in his landing a summer internship with a USC Earth Sciences prof, who he’ll be working with to do climate modeling using MatLab, studying the effects of El Nino. Since some of the larger logistical issues still remain, he’ll be taking his final online class in Multivariable Calculus his senior year. </p>
<p>We made a big push to ensure the HS would: 1) Accept for credit and 2) Mark it on his transcript for exactly what it is (and not some lame description like “Home School” which is what they did for part of the year for the Linear Algebra. This was successful. We lost the battle in getting the weighted credit for the class, like the HS gives for the AP classes. It got to be more of the principle of the matter than anything else and we finally just moved on, figuring the proper listing on the transcript (with those A’s) will hold more value than being val/sal because of it (this is determined by weighted academic GPA.)</p>
<p>Good luck to your S going forward.</p>
<p>FindAPlace - I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>Kelowna – Good for your S. Glad to see Tokenadult chimed in on this, as he knows all about this stuff. S1 took it as a young-for-grade freshman after already having some calc; the curve is generous, an 800 not difficult. Is now a happy math major.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son, Kelowna. The outcome was unsurprising.</p>
<p>Congrats. My 19 year old son took the GRE, computer based, recently and did very well. Math GRE this fall. Never worry about being out of synch with the average kids. Let kids proceed at their pace- they will find their peers who have also done so, even if they need to go away to college to do so.</p>