Trying to get some more opinions on this, so I’m posting it in this forum (since I think it gets the most traffic on CC):
I’m posting on behalf of my (fairly panicked) best friend. She’s applying Stanford RD and listed on her Common App that she would be taking physics and math subject tests in January. She’s only registered for Physics and was planning to just write the second come test day, but her family has been having trouble with finances and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to afford the second test.
We’re both international so we were not made aware of things like fee waivers until very recently and I told her I was pretty sure it is too late to try to file for one of those now.
Will highly competitive colleges, e.g. Stanford, mind (or even notice) that she only sends in the physics? Should she email ahead of time to tell them to make changes to what she entered into her common app, or will it not make any difference? She has already done two subject tests, did well on them, and reported them. Physics will be her third test, and math would have been her fourth.
Thank you both for that info. I let her know, and she’s thankful, but her main concern is still the fact she wrote on her common app that she would be writing both. Would doing so, then not sending both come off as a problem? Like she’s hiding a bad score or not representing herself properly? Should she try to contact them or should she just assume they’ll be fine with taking in whatever she sends without any questions?
If she is so worried about the conciseness of her statement about the tests, then she should simply email admissions to inform them of the change in her test-taking plans.
What she wrote on the common app was just what she planned to do, plans change all the time. If someone gets sick and doesn’t show up on test day, has to leave early, etc there are many reasons why someone would not take the exact exams that were intended. I agree that it she is worried, she can send an informational email to the admissions office. But they are not going to spend any time analyzing or wondering about the difference between the plan and what came to pass.