<p>I seem to be finding contradictory information-- are SAT II's required for admission at Oberlin? Any sense of how important they are in the total scheme of things?</p>
<p>The Oberlin website says that the SAT I or ACT is required and SAT II's are optional.</p>
<p>Right, so then here is the next question: when they call SAT II's "optional", does that mean you are essentially screwed if you don't submit them or if they are mediocre? DS took 2 in June-- one came back fine (lit) but the other (math I) was pretty awful. He actually has no interest in math (good thing!) or pursuing anything math/science related in college and loves Oberlin, so we are wondering whether these scores really matter at all. Any opinions?</p>
<p>My son never took SAT II and was admitted with a scholarship. However, if he submits his SAT I scores, they will see his SAT II scores as well. I can't imagine that a lower math score will knock him out, especially if he isn't planning on pursuing math or science.</p>
<p>Momoschki, I think it really is okay not to take the SAT II's if Oberlin is saying they're optional. But Shennie is right, they will be submitted along with the SAT I scores. The one way to avoid that would be for your son to take and then submit ACT scores only. </p>
<p>My son's first two SAT II's were like your son's, one good, the other not so good. (We encouraged him to take the French SAT II at the end of his jr year as he was not planning to continue, and we thought it might help him pass out of college French in the future. Oh well.) He then decided to take a 3rd SAT II in his sr year and got another good score. We like to think that the colleges only considered his top two scores but we'll never know.</p>
<p>I get the idea that SAT II's serve to confirm what is already known about a student from his SAT's and grades. I can't imagine that one outlier (either super high or super low) makes much difference.</p>
<p>I probably shouldn't dispense advice on the Oberlin board, however, as Oberlin seemed a perfect match for our son and then he was waitlisted and eventually rejected. He is a wonderfully interesting but lopsided kid, though, so we did expect to have some disappointments along the way (just not Oberlin!). No hard feelings -- he got into some great places.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you! (Have enjoyed following your other thread and could easily chime in there as well, sigh.)</p>
<p>Skie-</p>
<p>just curious, where did your son end up? Mine is far more adept in verbal areas and has done some very interesting and unusual musical things. He loved Oberlin for its musical bent combined with strong liberal arts and felt he just clicked with the other kids there he met when he did an overnight. I know that at this point it's very important that he keep his options open, but it's been hard to get him to consider other places, as much as we have suggested them. At this point I think we especially need some safety options.</p>
<p>I know people who got in without SAT IIs. I took three, though.</p>
<p>I hope your son gets in :D, and decides to attend!</p>
<p>Momoschki, my son will be starting at Wesleyan in the fall and we all think it will be a great fit for him. I don't know how "safe" these schools are, but he applied to and was accepted at Brandeis, Bard and UNC-CH (in-state) as well. He was waitlisted at his top two choices, Oberlin and Vassar, and rejected from Haverford. Grinnell and Sarah Lawrence were on his list for a while, as they are strong in music, but they didn't make the final cut.</p>
<p>If you are financially able, you might consider having your son apply to Oberlin early decision, which seems to improve the admission odds considerably. My son was not ready to claim a first choice back in November, though one good thing came of his even considering ED: he got his common app essays written before the Nov. 15 deadline. That was a huge load off, even though he ended up having to write many more essays and then waited till the last possible minute to press the submit buttons. Fun, fun!</p>
<p>Skie, yes, my S is considering applying ED to Oberlin-- his college office at school has also mentioned that this would boost his chances. We visited Wesleyan over spring break and he liked that very much too. Actually, there seems to be a lot of overlap between your son's list and ours. GL in the fall!</p>
<p>My D was powerful verbally and very weak mathematically. She wrote a strong "Why Oberlin" essay and within it, acknowledged the gap in her academics in a sentence. She referred to her own thought process that Oberlin's Quantitative Proficiency distribution requirement would be manageable for her, along with some "0-level" math courses. </p>
<p>Oberlin seems to cope well with gappy presentations of student skills, taking some who "have it all" and others who -- if you put two of them together with krazy glue -- also "have it all." Above all, they prize intellectual curiosity.</p>
<p>Upon graduation, however, she did say that having to take 9 hours for math-related work was a lot. Another college might have let her off with one College Algebra course.</p>
<p>She took things like Musical Acoustics, a computer science course (website design? I can't recall, honestly) but she got through the QP requirement. Also NS (natural science).</p>
<p>She didn't let the math scare her off of OBerlin but it was a theme throughout her career there, getting those math and science distribution credits in. She loved all the rest, academically, socially, artistically.</p>
<p>Most of her friends are in the Social Science and Natural Science majors, so she actually learned quite a bit from them but in dinnertable discussions. Their new science building attracts a lot of strong students who are good in their fields but want to be there for some cross-disciplinary communication, so it works well.</p>
<p>Edit to add this thought: Aren't you supposed to choose the SAT-II's by your strongest subject area? Yet I know other schools require one in a math/science, and one in a humanities, so perhaps you've got some leftover choices dictated by other schools' requirements for SAT-II topics. In that case, can she take a third SAT-II subject in the fall where she can demonstrate strong ability? My thought is that in schools where SAT-II's are optional, you should be using them to show that you can excel where you have a favorite subject area. So if she could submit 2 good ones, it would relegate that poor math score to a minority, dissenting opinion :)</p>
<p>^^^ Thanks for the input. The reason my S ended up taking the math SATII in the first place was really a result of bad planning and lack of appropriate (in my view) counseling from his HS: other subjects he could have taken, such as bio or chem, he took in previous years and we were, alas, ignorant that it would have taken more sense to take these tests sooner. I don't think he could really go back and take these tests now. Also, languages aren't particularly a great strong point for him, so he's ruled out Spanish. This really only left the math and literature as viable options. Given this dilemma, the main question now is whether he should retake the math. I think he might reasonably be able to raise it 50-ish points-- not sure if this would really make much of a difference in the end though.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions: just how large was the gap between yor daughter's math/verbal skills?</p>
<p>also, even when u choose them in ur strongest subjects it doesn't alwasy demonstarte true knowledge</p>
<p>for example, i took the hebrew test. I am consistantly at the top of my class and i ADORRRRRE the language, but it's very very weighted towards the native speakes, which I'm not... I got a 620, which is an abysmyl percentage... I'm hoping that my high-ish SAT adn my 750 history sat II plus a good essay cancel that out.</p>