My son is a very self-motivated and excellent student. Overall, his scores have been great:
36 ACT
2320 SAT
228 PSAT
800 Math II, 780 Chem
5’s on his two AP tests (from soph year, still waiting on his 6 APs junior year)
4.0 unweighted GPA (all honors or AP)
Although he felt really great about the U.S. history SAT II, somehow he got a 730 (77th percentile). He thinks maybe a bubbling error towards the end? Who knows.
When he found out his score, he just said “oops, I guess I’ll have to take it again”. I realize a 730 isn’t stellar, but surely this one score won’t be factor with admissions? In fact, if he just re-tests for this one SAT II test, I think it would tell admissions he is stat chaser.
He is applying to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Rice, Duke, UT and Texas A&M. And either OU or U Of A for a NMF safety school option.
Can you reassure him that a 730 is a legitimate score and he should just move on. I had hoped we were all done with tests, except for his senior year APs…
One last point, if he gets a 4 or a 5 on his APUSH test, surely that would render his U.S. History SAT II moot? Or not?
Thank you for your advice, this seems silly and trivial when there are such real problems in the world, but then again this is CC
My son did the same. Last month he thought he aced USH and struggled with chem. he got 780 chem and 720 USH. I talked him into burying it. He’s got plenty of other good scores and No one needs to see that one. Your son doesn’t need to prove anything at this point. He’s already a top .1%er.
The other SAT 2 scores are great, and a 730 is still a good score. The time would be better spent on other parts of the application (such as essays). Those can make a difference between getting accepted/waitlisted/rejected at schools of that caliber while a 730 (which is still good) on one of the three SAT subject tests definitely won’t lead to rejection.
(1) Many colleges (including Ivies) only look at your two highest SAT II scores. You already have two great scores.
(2) I see a slight preference towards STEM in the colleges you listed. These schools will care much more about the Chem and Math II scores than the US score, especially if a STEM-related major is chosen.
(3) The 77th percentile is misleading. Subject tests are usually taken only by the “top 5 to 10 percent students” because they are optional.
(4) You have better things to do than memorize some more facts…
On May 26th, the number of incorrect and omitted answers for each test you took is released. If the numbers seem strange, you should order the hand-rescore service. Regardless, do not bother retaking the test.
There’s nothing wrong with retaking if he wishes. However, you can tell him to just" neglect" to mention the score, as he did just fine on others.
*Actually I’m not too sure.if he can, he shouldn’t send them in. If he has to, it won’t really matter (but def not for the betyer)
I don’t think its worth hist time to retake. Math 2 and Chem scores will look far more impressive and will overshadow the 730. Tell your kid to relax, their is a good chance he will get into one of his reach schoools with those stats listed.
Since all of the schools on his list allow score choice for the subject tests, there is no reason that he would even need to report that score. Most of those schools want to see two scores at most, so he’d just submit the Math and Chem scores.
Does he really need to submit 3 SAT subject scores? I thought most colleges were okay with two. I’m in a similar situation and would appreciate input on this matter as well.
Now there is no school, but a few programs, require more than 2 SAT2 scores. I don’t think any of the schools on your list require 3 SAT2 scores. For those programs that require 3 SAT2 scores, I don’t think US History is among the requirement anyway. He should definitely forget about it and move on with the other 2 great scores.
