<p>Hello! I'm a first year at Barnard College and I am looking to place into a higher level Spanish class for the spring/fall 2015 semesters. With it having been a full six months since I've actively studied either of these languages, I would like to sign up for the December 6th SAT IIs (which are, unfortunately, on my birthday) to gauge my language skills and more accurately estimate which level I should be in. Barnard does offer placement tests for these subjects, but I think they are the be-all end-all of placement and I had a very tumultuous and weird foreign language career at my high school (with teachers quitting halfway through the year and being replaced by substitutes who don't know the language), and thus I would like to try my hand at the SAT subject tests first. My reasoning is, if I take these first and don't place into suitable levels (I learned Spanish through year 5 and have taken IB Spanish classes at SL and HL, but I'd guess I'm probably at a high Intermediate Spanish I/year 3 level) I can at least try to identify problem areas and improve before taking the placement test.</p>
<p>I just have a couple of questions for people that might be more experienced with the SATs (as I'm from an ACT state and never took SATs of any variety) -- </p>
<p>1) Is it actually possible to take these tests as a first-year in college?
2) Is there any way I could get a fee waiver for it without technically belonging to a high school any more? I'm not too hopeful on this but I am a (very) low income student and it would certainly help.</p>