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Replies to: SAT subject tests are NOT truly optional for middle/upper middle class applicants at elite colleges!
I read a SCEA recap article from Harvard admissions a couple of years ago and they commented on how thrilled they were with the increase in low income applicants. They mentioned they were basing the stat on the number that had requested fee waivers. (Just one of numerous factors that can imply income.)
Need-aware schools such as WUSTL *do* consider whether or not a student can afford to attend, and, as far as I know, will often choose full pay deferred applicants over lower income "needy" applicants.
Sorry to have derailed the thread! Back to SAT IIs...
Otherwise it seems to be a lot of additional testing that isn’t necessary (taking both the ACT and SAT)
My own two older sons each submitted 3 scores, and literature for both of them was the relatively weaker scores at 730 and 710; nonetheless, I think those scores were fine, and they both were admitted to highly selective schools (MIT, Penn, Princeton, etc.).
But to the other points raised in this thread - the first thing to do is read the requirements for each school. Which may have changed since last year.
Folks. Listen to ski (and a few others.) When you apply with 40k others, when adcoms need to filter hard and fast, when there are thousands just like you, but THEY submitted it all, with strengths, you may very well get set aside. You could be the one with the file note, "sorry we don't have further scores."
No, they don't always insist. But be logical.
And this notion you only need an S2 to make up for a bad grade? Or in some unrelated field? What you need is to be on your game, 110%. Or 150%. Or they'll pick others.
Again, elites. A broad category of top and tippy top that filter purposefully, even brutally. A competition, not a walk in the park.
As I said, my own son, an MIT graduate, got 800s on his Math II and Physics subject tests (actually got his 800 in 8th grade on the Physics test), but MIT really does look at context for URM students (women, ethnic URMs, first gen, etc.) because diversity greatly matters to MIT. They are very upfront about that. They also look at more than test scores. I've worked with students who've gotten into MIT and students who haven't, and it has never surprised me to see who gets in and who doesn't.
My recent response was to someone who was asking about their non-STEM subject tests and my response was, and still is, send it in. A 700+ on a non-STEM subject test shows depth beyond STEM.
I've rarely been surprised by MIT, they say they admit the best math, science and engineering students and they do. The MIT grads I've worked with are top notch, no questioning them like, "how did they get into MIT?", which does happen for other colleges.