<p>The average SAT II scores for students who applied or were accepted to Duke? Or that middle 50% they give like for the SAT? I googled but couldn't find anything I was looking for. Just trying to figure out if I should retake or not...</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Oh and I took US History and Lit.</p>
<p>I don’t think many places keep that kind of statistic simply because there are just too many different tests they have to keep track of. Your best bet, as detailed in a couple threads down about the same topic, is to look through old accepted threads and glean SATII from there.</p>
<p>Yeah I’ve already looked through some of the Accepted and Rejected threads. The only thing is those are [obviously] only CC people. I feel that CC people are generally more conscientious about their scores and grades and aren’t an accurate representation of the 23000 applicants and probably not the majority of the 3500 accepted either. I don’t imagine half of those 23000 got 800’s like CC would lead me to believe lol.</p>
<p>I got a 720 in US History and a 690 in Literature. I’m going to retake Lit, but I’m wondering whether or not I should retake history? Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I always get the impression that SATIIs aren’t as important as SATs so I wouldn’t get too worked up over them</p>
<p>^i actually believe its the opposite, as SAT subject tests actually test mastery in subjects whereas the SAT is just a …*** test. lols</p>
<p>True, mastery at a subject, however, in miy mind, with the exception of Math IIc, the other SATII subject tests are really similar to AP tests so if you’ve taken those tests then there shouldn’t be any doubt as to your competency. </p>
<p>Also, since you can take so many different SATIIs, with the exception of the required Math for Pratt, I feel it’s very hard to compare applicant who has taken different tests making SATII scores not very useful.</p>
<p>True. I think I did really well on my APUSH, I feel like I got a 5. Do you think that would quiet any doubts about not mastering USH wish a 800?</p>
<p>Well here is the thing about AP tests and SAT IIs, they are quite different. AP tests is on a curve and the people who score a 5 didn’t necessarily get a 90%. AP tests are graded on a curve, in other words, some people can get a 5 even if they score a 65 out of 100 questions, they are competing against each other. SAT II however has a set grading scale, you get the problem wrong get get points off even if everyone else who took it got a score lower than you.</p>
<p>SATII is also graded on a curve. Like most standardized tests, both SAT/SATII are scanned to generate a raw score, then that raw score is converted to a scaled scored based on the version of the test taken, historical performance of past takers, and performance of the current test group (and probably other factors). In other words, SATII has many similarities to the AP tests in how they are graded. </p>
<p>There’s also the consideration that AP tests/courses are considered college-level courses. While some SATIIs (particularly the foreign language ones) are considered intro college level, many are considered high school level material. In a head to head comparison of the same subject where both scores are available, I would think that AP scores carry far more weight. </p>
<p>Finally, one has to consider how the admissions consider SATII/AP. While I think admissions has a policy of not really requiring AP score reporting, they will look at your grades in the AP course. If you did well in the course and submitted your presumably good AP score, I’m sure they would logically give it more consideration than a slightly low SAT II in a comparable subject for the reasons mentioned above and the fact that grades constitute a more reliable, long term evaluation of performance and learning.</p>
<p>APs and SAT IIs, no matter how they are graded, are inherently different. APs test college-level material, while SAT IIs test “college preparatory” (honors-level) material. Oddly, though, I’ve always gotten the impression that colleges considered SAT IIs much more than APs.</p>
<p>Because students who score a 5 on the AP probably got like a 60-70 on the test (depending on some) but students who score 800 on the SAT got perfect or at least near perfect.
AP is more of how other people do, SAT is more about how you do yourself</p>
<p>knat: that impression could be due to the fact that places like Duke require SATII scores but not necessarily AP scores. </p>
<p>I don’t argue that the material covered in both tests are similar, only that at the end of the day, the grade distributions are set similarly. Like knat said above, AP is college-level material while SATII is honors-level. It’s only fair, that college-level material is graded on a curve that’s more representative of how college courses are graded. That doesn’t lessen the accomplishment or weight of a 5. </p>
<p>With regards to the SATII, it’s unlikely that admissions singles out 800-scores as anything special. Most probably, evaluations of the SATII score will involve some sort of a (possibly) informal cutoff based on percentiles, rendering the difference between say a 790 and an 800 completely irrelevant. Thus, a valid comparison in AP/SATII scores probably won’t be between a 5 and a 800 but rather a 5 and a range of scores like 770-800 for instance.</p>