SAT subject tests score question

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>Hey everybody!</p>

<p>I visited Princeton this past Sunday and I absolutely fell in love with the school. I could see myself there, happy and honest, without any hesitation. Without any shadow of a doubt it is my #1 choice for college. And before the tour I took, I picked up the little handouts and pamphlets, and then on the way home I noticed something which distressed me: "If you choose to take more than two subject tests, we will consider all your scores, giving the greatest weight to your two strongest scores."</p>

<p>I had thought that, like I thought was the case with other schools I've been evaluating, they would simply look at your two best scores and ONLY judge you based on those during the admission process. I signed up for US History (took the class, expected to do well), Lit (I'm good with English but haven't taken the class yet), and Physics (did okay in the class but didn't expect to do all that well), and planned to maybe take one more set of tests in the fall if I didn't get two good scores. And then, in order to save ~$40 of my family's limited money (as I saw reporting schools months later costs $9.50 each), I chose Princeton along with Columbia, Yale, and University of Chicago as the four schools to which the College Board would send my scores for free.</p>

<p>Now, the night BEFORE the Princeton visit, I received my SAT scores. I got a 780 in US History, a 670 in Lit (lower than I'd thought), and a 650 in Physics (makes sense since I panicked and left 26 blank--it was SO much harder than the AP B test). I felt very happy about the US History score, and planned to take 3 more tests in the Fall (probably Physics, as I'm in AP C next year, and Math 2 and Lit again) so I would have two really good ones to send to colleges, in the 700s, and then a bunch of bad ones to ignore. But when I read that little snippet from the Princeton book, and then again on the website, my heart sank.</p>

<p>Even if I get a 780 on US History and another 700-something on something else (which I think I could do), do I understand that quotation correctly? Are they seriously going to judge all of my tests, even the ones that I thought wouldn't likely be considered? Do you think getting those additional mediocre scores will hurt my chances in this already crap-shoot admissions process? Is there any option to only send certain subject scores to schools, rather than every one taken on a given test day? And if my low scores are held against me, would it really be worth it to take 3 more tests when it's likely I'll only do well on one, maybe two, of them?</p>

<p>Thank you to anybody who's read all this storm and stress. :)
-Eric</p>

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<p>They probably will consider them a little bit, but they won’t give relatively bad scores very much weight at all. Let this be a warning to everyone else, though: don’t take advantage of the free score reporting.</p>

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<p>What are SAT subject tests? Are they benefical?</p>

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<p>They are the achievement counterpart to the SAT Reasoning Test. They test your skills in specific subjects and are an hour each. Princeton requires two, as do most top schools.</p>

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<p>oh, ok…Thank you Silverturtle. I am new to colleges and all this stuff so I am having trouble knowing what everything is.:)</p>

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<p>Ah, thank you. I suppose it’s just a lesson learned, and at least the scores aren’t super-horrible (although I’m confused as to how 650 is the 43th percentile for Physics while 670 is the 74th percentile for Lit–is 20 points that big of a difference, or is it that the kids taking physics are likely better at science than people taking lit are at literature topics?) So what do I do, then, for the one I take in the fall? Is there an option for just reporting specific subject scores, after you know what your scores are?</p>

<p>Also, on a related note, if it says that my “score send history” is blank on the CollegeBoard site, does that mean they haven’t sent out the scores yet?</p>

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<p>The difference is A LOT of people take Lit, while only a select few take Physics, and, yes, they tend to be good at science.</p>

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<p>Real quick bump just because I still don’t know how it works with reporting individual subject test scores if I take it again in the fall.</p>