Another voice agreeing with the post. I heard an admission officer from an Ivy school say that they made the SAT II optional in order to make admissions more accessible to poor and rural students who either don’t have the money to take the exam or a way to readily get to an exam center.
SAT subject tests are NOT truly optional for middle/upper middle class applicants at elite colleges!
CC told D that unless her subject test scores were markedly higher than her regular SAT scores it was not important to test/send. If your scores or gpa are inconsistent then subject tests can weight your profile one way or another; but if you have a very consistent profile they are not going to matter either way. Not submitting will not be an automatic ‘ding’ against you, in fact it can make you look less ‘helicoptered’ which in the landscape of competitive HS is not a bad angle IF it fits your profile. This is for top LAC only, I hear other things about different types of school and certainly for Ivys they are warranted.
I do wonder why APs are so discounted in the application process WRT SAT2s, if students have solid scores in solid AP subjects, why are they not considered equal to SATs? Some of them would be harder than SATs. no?
Sybylla, APs are easy to study for with a clearly defined curriculum. Subject tests less so, esp ones like Lit. Many schools do not teach an AP curriculum so the tests are irrelevant to a wide range of students.
Is it possible that SAT subject tests are more important for middle class and upper middle class students coming from public schools and unknown private schools than for students coming from well-known privates that seem to send disproportionately high numbers of their students to very selective colleges?
These would not be students who can’t afford the fee. These would be students who attend private high schools well known to college admissions officers who feel so confident of the academic standards that they see no need for all the students they admit from the school to provide 2 or 3 extremely high subject test scores.
It might be helpful to students if we qualify what “elite” means. Are we talking, for example, top 25 of USWR rankings for both universities and liberal arts colleges? Top 10? Top 50? Where does one draw the line? For someone with limited (but available, if necessary) funds applying to schools in that 25-50 rank bracket, can they safely skip the subject tests?
I’m applying to Northwestern ED from an upper-middle class background. I took two subject tests but didn’t really study for them and am not submitting them. While NU says two subject tests are recommended, I spoke to an admissions officer at an NU summer program I went to and he said subject tests are only meant to make up for a bad grade or something, and that applicants who do not submit them are NOT at a disadvantage.
^ Would like some opinions regarding my above post. Anyone else have any specific knowledge about NU or talked to an admissions officer from there like I did?
@abdcf - I have posted about this subject numerous times - and I can confirm. My son was also told by an admissions officer at NU that subject tests were only recommended for those that wanted to show strength in an area that was not highlighted by previous testing and grades. Since my son had a 4.0 GPA and all 5s on AP tests he did not take any SAT IIs and was admitted ED.
So - at least for NU - I can state with confidence that “recommended, not required” means exactly what it says, and not all kids from public HS have to take subject tests. However, it is worth pointing out that this subject (no pun intended) should be approached from an individual, personal viewpoint, and I expect that college responses can vary on a case by case basis. “When in doubt, fill it out” might be more than a catchy phrase!
Good luck to all facing this dilemma, and I recommend calling your school of choice admit office to get the only response that really matters. 
CB provides waivers for 2 sittings of the SAT as well as 2 sittings of the SAT II… I think it is more of an issue of not being aware of the SAT IIs than cost.
A great place to start is a chart on prepscholar. I am unable to post the link due to CC rules, but Google is your friend. While one should confirm the info with the college in question, as college’s websites have the up-to-date info, it is a good start.
So on that Prepscholar chart, Northwestern is listed as “considered,” which I listed in post #8 how I define “considered.” Contrast that with Yale or Princeton, which says “recommended.” For those colleges that say “recommended” without any caveat explicitly stating that applications without Subject Tests will not be disadvantaged, I stand by my assertion in post #6.
For Northwestern, it depends on which program. The integrated science major still requires 3 specific subject tests.
. Is there a resource for determining what a “great” score is for each subject? I often hear 700+ is generally good enough to send to schools that “consider” subject tests and that 700+ would only help not hurt chances at elite schools. But a 710 on Math II, for example, does not sound like a great score. Would submitting that to Vanderbilt or Haverford, say, hurt your chances?
Report from the field: at our local HS most kids and counselors seem oblivious to subject tests. GCs definitely do not emphasize them. I’ve seen a few cases where people say “Oh, the subject tests are only recommended, not required–one less thing to worry about!” Luckily, we got the memo in time but in my experience most people don’t. Folk wisdom prevails. People mistake SAT IIs for something like an arts supplement that truly is optional and not appropriate for everybody. I’ve tried to tell people that if they really want to aim for a certain class of school they really should make the extra effort and take subject tests, unless financial hardship is really a barrier. “Oh, but they’re not required!” Sigh.
@ProfessorMom1 Prep Scholar has a chart. Google “prep scholar subject test good score”
It is very different depending on the test.
@ProfessorMom1 - I have heard that the subject test scores should typically be in line with the 50-75th percentile SAT section scores for that school. Language subject test scores for non-native speakers might have different parameters.
Just looking at the table from the Prep Scholar, a 700 in Literature puts a student in the 74th percentile, but a 700 in Math Level II would be the 45th percentile. Quite a difference.
The question is whether any admissions people actually care about percentiles.
I’ve expressed my opinion on this topic on other threads, but it bears repeating:
One thing to realize: percentiles don’t matter; scores matter. It is important to understand that for several subjects, the percentiles are depressed because so few colleges request Subject Tests, that the ones that do are the ultra selective ones. As a result, it is the high achieving kids taking the tests. No AO is sitting on the floor cross-referencing scores with percentiles.
As to what a “great” score is, that’s subjective, IMO and also based in part on the school. A 710 in M2 to MIT or Harvey Mudd is probably not going to enhance an application. A 710 to Vandy or Haverford would be fine.
The percentiles reflect self-selection of those who take each test. For example, Math 2 has higher scores than Math 1, because only the stronger students in math (who are at least one grade level ahead of the normal sequence) take Math 2.
I assume some may think about percentiles, but most probably don’t. However, if it were me reviewing hundreds of apps, I’d probably figure out in a hurry that certain subject tests have higher scores than others. As an example, there are fewer 800’s in Literature than Math Level 2. Patterns develop and become ingrained in the brain or at least they would for me.