Can a single bad score be fatal?

mediocretes
Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:23:28 +0000

What are you gonna major in? I’d say that the number of majors offered by Caltech that aviod physics as a major component are a lot less than those that don’t aviod it. What I mean to say is, at caltech, physics is pretty important. I’d say that you need to explain your low score somewhere in the application. Also, do you have research or anything else that makes you stand out? Caltech gets a lot of applicants that look like you and I don’t mean to get you real down, but they might see your score as an excuse to ax you. Since you MUST have a science SAT II to apply and you don’t sound too optimistic about the chem one, that doesn’t sound like it’ll turn out well. My advice would be to heavily review those things you didn’t originally learn in physics (even if that means everything but mechanics) and take it again. If you get a much better score, it’ll just look like you messed up and that you really have sufficient physics skills.