SAT subject tests - 1 good/1 average

Parents Forum
1

My daughter is interested in applying for CS at GA Tech, Berkeley, UCLA, Duke, Carnegie Mellon and Stanford for our OOS schools. She’s already been accepted at UCF and will be applying to UF in-state as well. She’s a National Merit semifinalist with an SAT super score of 760 EBRW/790 M. Her GPA is 3.97 UW with her only B in AHuG freshman year :frowning: Her HS offers a LOT of AP classes and she’s taken many. She got a 5 in BC calc, US History, Lang, CSA; 4 in Physics C, AB calc, Bio, AHuG; 3 in Chem and CSP. She’s taking AP stats, Physics E/M, Studio Art, Macro, Gov, and Lit this year. She got an 800 on the Math 2 subject test which is 79th percentile. The problem is she’s tried taking Chem and didn’t do great 640 (35th percentile) so not sending that one. She tried Bio E in Aug and got a 690 (69th percentile) so studied and retook it earlier this month hoping to do a little better. Well, she did worse and got a 660.

I know rule of thumb is to send them if they help your application and the bio score is marginal so we didn’t know what to do with these scores given the schools she’s applying. I don’t think she can submit just the math score because the implication is that you don’t have a good second score. We were hoping she would a merit scholarship at GA Tech and know all the other schools are reach schools for just about everybody.

2

If any of those schools require 2 tests (or “recommend” them), you should probably send Math and Bio. If they don’t, only sending one won’t really imply a second one.

At least, that’s what I’d do.

3

agreed! Send the math only unless the school explicitly asks for two. My D isn’t sending either of hers do congrats on the great math score!

4

Of the schools on her list, only Georgia Tech and Stanford state the subject tests are optional…for those I would send her math 2 test only.

The rest of the CS programs recommend two subject tests, so send math 2 and bio. It looks like bio satisfies the recommendation in all the CS programs at those schools…but make sure to double check all of this info.

Good luck.

5

Carnegie Mellon CS used to want physics or chem - interesting that they are now allowing bio as well. I think the bio score is sort of neutral. Won’t help, but probably won’t hurt. My younger son also got a 5 on the bio AP and then a less wonderful score on the bio subject test. He took both bio-E and bio-M got 720s twice. I think he sent the score everywhere. He wasn’t apply to CS programs though and he didn’t get into any of his super reach schools. (Did get into U Chicago, Tufts and Vassar.)