I am a high school senior applying to a range of top-flight schools this fall, and I have gone back and forth over my SAT Subject Test Scores for a month now. I have taken two of these tests, and earned a 770 on US History and a 680 on Literature. Will this Literature score be an impediment to my acceptance into competitive schools? The final registration deadline for December is tomorrow, so I need to make up my mind within the next 24 hours or so as to whether I want to retake it. One the one hand, I feel like I might as well just take Literature again and try to boost my score above a 700, but then I don’t want to risk it going down and making matters worse.
Other potentially useful info: I am currently ranked #1 in my class (4.67 GPA) and my SAT score is a 2210. I have several leadership positions and am actively engaged in co- and extra-curricular activities. I intend to major in either economics or government, and then attend law school. I am primarily looking at East Coast schools. I have already applied to UVA, and intend to apply to several others, including Princeton, Cornell, W&M, Duke, and UNC.
With those grades I think you could do far better than a 680, I’m below average and I got a 750 on that test. My understanding is that a sub-700 score can really hurt you at top colleges, I’d retake
Thanks for the honest reply. I’d like to hear from others, too, but I suppose I’ll go ahead and retake it. It is so frustrating to think that I could be disqualified from a great school over one subject test score.
To clarify: You will not be rejected from a school solely because of one subject test score. If youre rejected, the 680 will have played a part and hurt your admissions chance, but by no means would that be the only reason. Perhaps your ECs werent GREAT your rec letters werent GREAT and your essays werent GREAT, coupled with a 680, that would get you rejected. If everything else is perfect, a 680 is fine. But the idea is that you want to make every part of your application as perfect as possible, and a 680 is by no means perfect. If you have the opportunity to retake or take a different subject test altogether, I strongly recommend it. Literature will be very hard to improve upon significantly in just a month, so you may be better off taking other ones where studying can help a great deal, like one of the histories or math II.
I am a strong math student (currently in BC Calculus), but from what I understand Math II requires a lot of preparation–something I don’t necessarily have time for over the next two weeks. Perhaps I’ll take a practice Math II tonight and see what I get?
I just don’t understand how so much emphasis can possibly be placed on a single subject test. I understand that they are yet one more way to polish off your application, but if someone has an extremely competitive SAT and GPA, plus an impressive list of extracurriculars, etc., why should the subject test be so relevant? I don’t mean to sound petulant or whiny, it’s just confusing to say the least.
A lot of “top-flight schools” have 10,000 applicants with very competitive SAT/ACT scores, a GPA close to 4.0, and impressive extracurriculars. They need to pick a few thousand of those kids, and it’s always easier to take someone with a pair of 800s than someone with a 680 on the SAT II.
No one has advised against retaking it thus far, so I suppose it’s clear what I should do. I just talked it over with my parents again and we decided that it would be prudent to speak with my school counselor tomorrow as well as call several admissions offices to obtain details about how much weight each school places on the SAT IIs. Unless we hear something vastly different from the responses on this forum, I will go ahead and retake the subject test.
I appreciate the responses/opinions offered here, and more are definitely welcome–especially if there’s any info that will help me not to panic even more…
@Loudoun1234 I wouldn’t bother calling the admissions offices of any school to ask if you should retake the test. I know an intern at penn’s admissions office, and he says that those calls are the most annoying. All he says every time is “Penn reviews every application holistically and no single piece is more important than the rest. Do what you think is best for you.” Talk to your GC, but I would take the advice of the other posters and retake the subject tests in December. Take Lit again, but I’d also recommend taking the maximum of 3 subject tests. Maybe pick a history, math II, science, or a foreign language as well. Lit is very hard to improve upon without extensive reading over several months and has a very harsh curve.
While most competitive schools may require you to send all SAT 1 and ACT scores most DO NOT require you send all all SAT2s so if you go down just don’t send it and if you go up send it instead of your 680. No harm in trying to improve and with a good SAT 1 and 5s on APs it would seem that you could pull a 700 plus in either math subject test without much extra study.
Maybe I’m remembering that incorrectly - perhaps tests taken same day do have to be sent together -so to send the US you may have to disclose the 680 but if that is the case to send that 770 your already presenting the 680 so trying to improve it or off set it with another high SAT 2 shouldn’t hurt you. Either way I’d take another stab at a 700 plus SAT2 of some subject
Luckily for Loudoun, wrong
Upon going to send them there is a checkbox option, I used it a few weeks back. What you may be thinking of is them making you cancel both scores if you don’t want one (no idea why).