<p>I've been wondering this for a while. I have friends that are very good at Spanish, whom I have always considered to be near fluent, yet the highest score of any of them was a 690 on the Spanish SAT II. I myself received a 670 on the SAT II, and I'm regarded in my school as the best in my grade at Spanish (<-- That isn't like arrogance, the AP teacher claimed that I was, so I'm rolling with it).</p>
<p>So my question is, what is a "good" score (or maybe even "acceptable") score on the SAT II in a language that is not your own for an Ivy League or top tier school??? I know that for most SAT IIs 750+ is awesome, 700+ is won't hurt you, and the rest is iffy for Ivies, but is this applicable for language tests?</p>
<p>As far as I know, that rule’s applicable. Since the people who elect to take a particular language exam are by definition good at it, you need a really high score to distinguish yourself. Getting <700 might put you in less than the 60th percentile (I know that for math II, a 620 is the 42nd percentile >.>)</p>
<p>That said, the colleges’ double standards are ridiculous. At Vanderbilt, a 670 wouldn’t help you get in and might even be the weak link on your app, but you only have to get a 520 to place out of freshman French. So that Spanish score might be very useful later on!!</p>
<p>Also, as you’ve found out, the SAT IIs are often useless at showing how much of the language you actually know. How did your AP exam turn out? From what I’ve found the AP is more accurate and college reps I’ve talked to say that they give it more weight!</p>
<p>I actually go to a different school than they, so I am not taking AP Spanish until next year. At their school AP Spanish is Level 4, but at mine it is level 5. Kids at my school generally get 3+ (mostly 4s, more 5s than 3s), however the AP teacher told me she expects a 5 from me. Great.</p>
<p>For SAT II Spanish, the 50th percentile is 660. For Spanish with Listening it’s 670. Those percentiles may be a bit misleading because generally speaking, the students taking SAT IIs are stronger than the much larger group taking the SAT Reasoning Test. For example, only about 35,000 2008 graduating seniors took SAT II Spanish, as opposed to 1.5 million who took the SAT reasoning test. Even so, a score in the high 600s is not going to help you with the Ivies or most other highly selective colleges that require SAT IIs. The language tests are frustrating because the percentiles include all the native speakers who elect to take the test, most of whom do very well and none of whom is going to impress adcoms with a high score in their native language. But that means non-native speakers have to show total command of the language—understanding it like a native, if you will—to earn competitive scores. Personally, I’d steer clear of SAT II foreign language tests, except maybe Latin where all the native speakers are dead.</p>
<p>It shows mean scores by years of study and means for native speakers. Native speakers in Spanish had a mean score of 720. I would have expected more high-700 scores among native speakers. This test must be tough even for them. Means for non-native speakers were much lower–in the 500’s–even after 4 years of study. </p>
<p>AP language tests show some similar trends, with Hispanics scoring proportionally more 4’s and 5’s and nonHispanics more 1-3’s. </p>
<p>Adcoms must take this into account when they look at Spanish scores. My kid submitted a 660 and an AP of 3 in Spanish. She had 3 other subject tests in the high 700’s or 800 and 3 other APs scores of 5’s. The lower Spanish score did not hurt; her acceptances were impressive and included ivies. Her counselor wrote that these were high scores for her high school (where the language teaching is weak). Your scores matter if you want to major in that language.</p>
<p>I just don’t think it’s that big a deal to be a non-native speaker, especially for the SAT II…the SAT II for Spanish is not super hard. As a non-native speaker, I found it to be, overall, not too hard, and I got a 780, without really studying. I got a 5 on AP Language, for reference. I think native speakers do throw off the curve a <em>little</em>, but people really exaggerate it, IMO.</p>
<p>To californiadancer, haha I didn’t find it too difficult either…when I was taking it! Then I got my 670. The thing is, I have just completed the level below AP, and I feel I would be able to do significantly better after taking the AP exam. Does anyone know of good prep ways to improve the SAT II Spanish score??</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. That chart is really revealing. For every SAT Language Subject Test except Latin and French, native speakers outnumber non-native speakers by a considerable margin—and sometimes by an overwhelming margin. About 90% of those taking Chinese test, for example, are native speakers; for Korean it’s somewhere around 95%. And not surprisingly, the native speakers do much better on the tests, with mean scores consistently in the 700s—Chinese 773, French 715, French with Listening 708, German 729, Modern Hebrew 723, Italian 754, Japanese 768, Korean 763, etc. For most of these languages, non-native speakers—even those with 4 years of study—had means in the 500s to low 600s, well below those of native speakers</p>
<p>I’d say for a non-native speaker a score in the upper 600s should be considered pretty good. </p>
<p>But apart from those intending to major in the language, I’d question the value of these tests. For a native speaker, a high score simply means you know the language like a native speaker—something adcoms should be able to deduce from the fact that you’re a native speaker. It doesn’t reflect academic achievement and shouldn’t be counted the same as a high score in math, physics, history, or literature. For non-native speakers, you’re putting yourself in a position where you’re likely to come out with a weaker score than most of those taking the test, hitting the 600s if you’re very good—while the people you’re competing with for seats in your favorite college are nailing 700s in other subjects. So why bother? I think the College Board should simply scrap these tests on grounds that they’re useless and uninformative. AP tests in the relevant language should tell the college all it needs to know about the language level of an applicant who intends to study a particular language. I’d strongly advise almost everyone against taking SAT Language Subject Tests.</p>
<p>Except Latin, because there are no native speakers. (Curiously, though, the College Board data show that 77 native speakers took the Latin Subject Test. It invokes images of 2,000-year-old geezers in togas sitting there trying to figure out how to work #2 pencils and dreaming of getting into Harvard, but the notes helpfully explain that people who studied Latin before 9th grade, at a college, or in “special study,” whatever that is, were listed as “native speakers.”)</p>
<p>Good points about the utility of the language SATs. The only reason my kid took the Spanish is because some of her prospective colleges were using SAT scores (but not AP) for placement or exemption from their world language requirement (or in lieu of their own placement test). She was not studying Spanish in her senior year and wanted to take standardized tests before she forgot what she had learned. We’ve seen that language grades from her HS are a meaningless indicator of proficiency. I actually thought it was risky for her to take it back in the days when there was no choice about score reporting, but she insisted. </p>
<p>I wish some Admissions Officers would share how they view non-native speaker’s scores. </p>
<p>My second child may take the SAT because she has studied independently with a tutor, and again, it is a way to demonstrate proficiency via a standardaized test, without having taken an AP class. </p>
<p>To the posters bragging about ease and high scores, you have good reasons to be proud, but the data show you are very,very far from the norm. It is nice to know that somewhere out there, a few rare high schools have competent world language teachers and good programs.</p>
<p>good is a rather subjective term here
I say it all depends on what kinds of school you are looking forward to. while its nice to have 800, not everyone can get that (especially for non-native speakers). I say anything above 700 will do the trick for most colleges. As much as I’d like to agree with post #9, you must realize that there are other non-native kids getting 800s on their language SAT2s. While the average is significantly lower,there are plenty of exceptions. So if you consider yourself to be average and apply to average schools, 600 will be just fine. But as for top50 schools, I would at least try for 700.</p>
<p>My kid got accepted at 4 top 15 universities, WL at 2 others, and accepted in one top 15 LAC (the only one applied to), with some very significant merit scholarships at several of these schools. This with the a 660 Spanish SAT and a 3 on the AP. From this experience, I advise that if you have 2-3 other strong SAT 2’s (750+) and are strong otherwise, don’t worry about a middle percentile score in the language if you are a nonnative speaker. If you are uncertain, wait to submit the language score until after accepted, and push for high scores in other areas to apply with.</p>