Welcome to College Confidential!

The leading college-bound community on the web

Sign Up For Free

Join for FREE, and start talking with other members, weighing in on community discussions, and more.

Also, by registering and logging in you'll see fewer ads and pesky welcome messages (like this one!)

As a CC member, you can:

  • Reply to threads, and start your own.
  • Post reviews of your campus visits.
  • Find hundreds of pages of informative articles.
  • Search from over 3 million scholarships.
Home / /
New Discussion

Can a subject test score make or break an application?

ThundercrashboltThundercrashbolt Registered User Posts: 78 Junior Member
in College Confidential Cafe
Especially if the college says that it's "recommended" rather than required. Thanks
· Reply · Share on Facebook

Replies to: Can a subject test score make or break an application?

  • skieuropeskieurope Super Moderator Posts: 42,950 Super Moderator
    Do you have actual schools/scores in minds, or is this all purely hypothetical? Like many things, the answer is "It depends." An 800 will not compensate for an otherwise weak application, but a 550 won't do you any favors.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • ThundercrashboltThundercrashbolt Registered User Posts: 78 Junior Member
    I mean, I do have a couple of schools and scores in mind, but I'd rather keep the situation hypothetical for personal reasons if that's okay.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • brantlybrantly Registered User Posts: 3,692 Senior Member
    I have no inside info, but my hunch has always been that the subject test scores are meant to be confirmatory.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • momofsenior1momofsenior1 Registered User Posts: 5,509 Senior Member
    At a very competitive school, you want every part of your application to be as solid as possible. Will it keep you out of a school? Probably depends on how bad the score.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • OttermaOtterma Registered User Posts: 1,523 Senior Member
    If the applicant is on the edge of being accepted, then having a significantly better or worse subject test score than other candidates could easily make or break it.

    Since you never know if you are on the edge or not with very competitive colleges (the ones that generally want the subject tests), it's best to assume that the tests are make or break and prep accordingly.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • Eeyore123Eeyore123 Registered User Posts: 1,157 Senior Member
    The simple answer is that if it never mattered, there would be no reason for them to ask for it.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • skieuropeskieurope Super Moderator Posts: 42,950 Super Moderator
    I'd rather keep the situation hypothetical for personal reasons
    Then hypothetically, I cannot imagine that an applicant applying to these colleges would not want to ensure that their application is as strong as possible.

    And since this is hypothetical, I'm moving the thread to the low-trafficked cafe with the other hypothetical threads.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
  • brantlybrantly Registered User Posts: 3,692 Senior Member
    The simple answer is that if it never mattered, there would be no reason for them to ask for it.
    Not necessarily. Putting up a few hurdles weeds out the ones who are not serious.
    · Reply · Share on Facebook
Sign In or Register to comment.