Our daughter is a sophomore in high school and has thus far taken one SAT subject exam (in Biology, at the conclusion of her freshman year.) This year, she plans to take subject tests in both World History and Latin - and will register to take the German exam this August. Is there a number beyond which it doesn’t make sense to keep taking these exams? Will AOs be as satisfied with two strong exams as they would with four or five? My thinking is if it doesn’t strengthen her applications to have taken more than a couple, it doesn’t really make sense to spend the time or money that additional exams will cost.
Also, will colleges care that she took these exams as a younger student, in 9th and 10th grade? Or are they more interested to see what a kid’s performance is like for junior year and beyond? FWIW, she is a student with strong stats, both in terms of GPA and test scores.
My sophomore son took Bio as well his Freshman year, and will take US History and Math 2 this year. And with that, he will be done taking SAT Subject tests as most schools that require or recommend them only ask for two Subjects to be reported (only exception off the top of my head is Georgetown which requires 3). While the general thinking appears to be that which tests you take are not relevant, since it’s not clear whether he will pursue engineering or not, he opted to take Math 2 and a science since most engineering programs ask that you submit a math and science subject SAT. I would be of the opinion that if the Bio, WH and Latin scores are solid, there would no further need to take any more, other than perhaps a math if she wants to leave the option for applying to an engineering program. Hope this is helpful to your analysis of this matter.
AO’s will not be impressed with 4 or 5. If she’s happy with the scores received on the first 2 or 3, she should call it a day.
Agreed.
No. They won’t be impressed that they were taken in the 9th grade, no will they give allowances for that fact. If she’s not happy with the 9th grade score, she can retake it to get a higher score, or switch to take a different subject.
Here’s the reality at my college, which recommends 2 Subject Tests: little elves in the basement (well, work/study students) assemble a cover sheet which lists only the top 2 Subject Test scores. The other scores will appear deeper inside the package. So the AO may see them, but won’t certainly spend a lot of time thinking about anything more than 2.
Good comments by @ThinkOn. I’d emphasize the stuff about possibly taking one of the Math tests. As to when to take them, I’d say ASAP after she’s taken the relevant courses, so the material is freshest in her mind. (I’d also say that freshman year is perhaps too soon to worry about such things, but that’s water under the bridge now.)
I’ll add that not that many schools require these tests, generally some of the top ones, and the trend seems to be away from requiring them. But you’re probably already aware of this, and you and your daughter have such schools in mind.
Thanks for the responses! @skieurope, I wasn’t asking about the issue of taking the tests in 9th grade versus later because I thought AOs would be “impressed,” but rather, that they would prefer NOT to have them from that point.
They won’t care; I doubt that they will even look to see when the test was taken. The student should take it ASAP after the class that prepared them. Since bio is a standard freshman course in most schools, it would not be unreasonable for some freshman to elect the Subject Test at the end of that year.
If the college has a language requirement, the foreign language SAT II may be used for placement/exemption (although an AP exam may serve the same purpose.) That would be the only reason to take that one.
If she is planning to pursue engineering, Math II and a science are often desirable – preferable to the ones taken.
I would ditch the German, and take Math 2 after taking pre-calc, you don’t need two foreign languages and it will give the impression that your daughter is too test focused (lol she could be, I don’t know, don’t take it the wrong way). If you d goes STEM, you have math/sci covered, if non-stem, then you can use w/h and latin. I believe most selective colleges want to see all scores, and having five subject tests is going to raise some flags, if they do the deep dive as someone wrote above.
The best time is always when you have the materials fresh in memory. My D1 took it in June after taking AP exam or corresponding subjects. The materials would not be exactly the same, but there is not too much effort to go through whatever that is not covered in AP in a few weeks. Just get practice test book and go through the reviews part before doing the practice tests.