What was the SAT II strategy in your house?

Parent Cafe
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<p>There is very good advice in the post from which this sentence is quoted. Yes, students from poor high schools can get on the radar screen of top colleges by testing beyond what they are advised to do by their high school counselors. </p>

<p>I’ll note for the record that an SAT score report is CUMULATIVE for all SAT Reasoning Test and all SAT Subject Test scores from ninth grade onward. So a college you send a score report to will see all of your scores (possibly disregarding all of them, as Chicago does for SAT Subject Test scores). Don’t worry about this, as colleges that regard scores generally (always?) have policies of considering the applicant’s highest scores, to the benefit of each applicant.</p>

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<p>^^Thank you, important clarification there. I thought they listed the SAT-II’s as individual subtests…has that changed, or do I misunderstand something here?</p>

<p>On foreign language, I’ve heard that it’s assumed that a student from a home that speaks that language should get 750 - 800 on it. I have no idea if that’s assumed by college admission officers, but I’m only repeating what students often say on their boards. It’s fine to take it, of course, but not considered amazing to have a surname “Wong” and then show a high SAT-II in Chinese (or that’s what the students tell each other..). If the surname is MacAdam, the transcript shows courses that progress from Beginning Chinese to Intermediate or Advanced Chinese, and the SAT-II in Chinese is reasonably high, then it’s knowledge acquired with sweat-and-pain, so a bit more respected. Thinking about it, though, I can’t believe it because how does any admissions officer really know about how much of a language is spoken at home based only on last names. There’s intermarriage, second or third generation Americans, and so forth. So please remember all I’ve done in this paragraph is repeat h.s. student peer info!</p>

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<p>P3T,
I did the self-study route in HS (late 1970s) for a couple of SAT-IIs because my high school did not have a good record of achievement and offered no AP courses. (I took two self-study, but was unaware I could take exams.) However, that prep helped me on both the USH and Lit SAt-IIs and my scores got me out of courses at college.</p>

<p>Another strategy I don’t remember seeing on this thread – choose Math Level I vs. II carefully. Math Level I goes through Algebra II, but the curve is very unforgiving. Math Level II goes through Pre-Calc, but has a much more generous curve. Your student may get a higher score on level II even if math is not his/her strength. Calibrate using a test prep book to see what would be the best test to take.</p>

<p>S2, who is taking pre-Calc as a soph but is not a math fiend by any means, is taking Math Level II on Saturday. He is scoring higher on Level II practice exams than Level I.</p>