<p>I have taken 2 SAT Subject tests (chemistry and US History) and I got a 590 on Chemistry and 630 on US History. Are those good scores? I'm using them to apply for the UC's in California so are those scores up to par with what those schools expect (UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz)</p>
<p>I would think that a good SAT 2 score is anything above a 700. I got the same us history subject score, so don’t sweat it too much. You might want to consider taking chem over again.</p>
<p>Hm, I don’t think it is possible to make a sweeping generalization like that. It is important to recognize that number scores are not as important as percentile rank. An 800 on the Chinese SAT II is average, while the same on the Biology SAT II would put you at the top 0.000001% of people taking that test (or something like that). So, anything above the 90th percentile is probably very, very good.
I agree that you should probably take Chemistry again, but don’t worry too much about US History. It’s not that important, as the test provides much less useful information to colleges about your competence in that subject (multiple choice=not really a good assessment of your understanding of history).
However, if your scores are average for the schools you are considering, just chill and take what you got.
(Sorry for the long reply…it turned into a discourse on SAT IIs).</p>
<p>Percentile rank is not used by colleges; please don’t post mis-information.</p>
<p>For Cal-Berkeley, unhooked candidates should have a 700+.</p>
<p>Blue bayou is correct about percentiles. Anything 700 or above is generally considered good; 750 and up is very good. Two exceptions:</p>
<p>For Math level 2 there are so many 800s that expectations are higher.</p>
<p>For a native speaker, no score on a foreign language test is high enough to overcome the bias against their taking it as a native speaker.</p>
<p>Not my intention. I think what I was trying to get at is that a good SAT II subject score totally depends on the test that you are taking. Not necessarily what the exact percentile works out to be. I sincerely doubt that a 700 is the same on the Chinese and the Biology tests.
Hope that helps to clarify =)
(So, in essence, I more or less agree with sherpa.)</p>