<p>Wow !! Both of my kids certainly did not have anyone plan their 4 academic years for them. I started CC when my D was a rising junior but all I insisted was to make sure she did the workbooks for SATs. Same for my son who was 2 years behind.</p>
<p>Owlice, it’s admirable that you are doing so much prep work for your son, but somehow your detailed planning and involvement scare me.</p>
<p>It’s great to plan. Just keep in mind that with kids, you have to deal with their ideas too, and they are often not on the same page as you. That book, “Take My Kid Please” is great because it brings this home so well in terms of college applications.</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound to me like Owlice’s planning is really impacting her S’s life in any kind of negative way. It’s pretty normal (here anyway 
) to say, “ok, you need to go ahead and take X SAT II this year.” Kids that age don’t tend to think in terms of, “Let me see, I want to take SAT II’s in these subjects and AP’s in those subjects before I graduate, so I’d better divide that out over the course of my 4 years so that I don’t overload myself at the end.”</p>
<p>Kids whose parents haven’t been hanging out here will likely look around sometime during their junior year and say, “I should take 3 SAT II tests?? I don’t have time for that! And besides, I took that class last year and now I’ll have to study that subject all over again!”</p>
<p>
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<p>Not true! I realize this is not owlice’s son’s situation, but some colleges have multiple subject test requirements for homeschoolers.
A couple of examples:
Pomona: 4
Georgetown recommends “4 to 6”
Some specify which tests for required for homeschoolers:
Claremont McKenna: Math II
University of Washington: a foreign language</p>
<p>So between the numbers and the types required, some students may find themselves having to take in excess of 3.</p>
<p>Yes! timely, you’ve got it. Knowing what may be needed and forewarning the kid, whose head is nowhere near college apps yet, is likely to decrease possible anxiety. (My kid does anxiety really well.) I’m going for guide him gently through. I can’t pick his courses for him (or rather, wouldn’t), but I can look past next week to see what one might want to be thinking of in six, eight, twelve months time, and let him know.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be calamitous, I know, for a kid to take three years of a language, switch languages and take another for two years, and then not have the opportunity to take (or be best prepared to take) an SAT subject test in a language because as a sophomore it never occurred to him that that might be a good idea. Not calamitous, but… if it’s a good idea for him to take an SAT subject test in a language, I can let him know that. (Now that I’ve learned it from folks here!! 
)</p>
<p>A quick question about Math II - my D is currently thinking of skipping the pre-calc course in school - she’ll do the coursework on her own and if she can “test out”, go straight to the AP Calc in junior year. In this case, should she be planning on doing the Math II tests in spring of her sophomore year (when she hopes to done with pre-calc)?</p>
<p>Also, what’s the general guideline/rule for subject tests? Are all scores reported or do you get to choose? Sorry for the basic question, but we are just now getting into all of this…</p>
<p>A quick question about Math II - my D is currently thinking of skipping the pre-calc course in school - she’ll do the coursework on her own and if she can “test out”, go straight to the AP Calc in junior year. In this case, should she be planning on doing the Math II tests in spring of her sophomore year (when she hopes to done with pre-calc)?</p>
<p>Also, what’s the general guideline/rule for subject tests? Are all scores reported or do you get to choose? Sorry for the basic question, but we are just now getting into all of this…</p>
<p>arisamp, I’ve heard from many that the best time to take the Math II subject test is when one is done with pre-calc. However your daughter does the coursework, on her own or in a class, she should take the Math II subject test near or at the end of doing that coursework.</p>
<p>My S is currently in pre-calc, and will take the Math II subject test in June.</p>
<p>I think all subject test scores get reported; don’t know whether that’s changing with score choice. I’m sure someone will be along to let us know!</p>
<p>owlice,
Your S isn’t homeschooled is he?</p>
<p>Are you sure pre-calc is enough background for the Math II SAT II?</p>
<p>question, my son is not homeschooled. According to everything I’ve read at CC, the time to take Math II is after Pre-calc; apparently, the Math II test does not include calculus. </p>
<p>It’d be nice if S were learning something new in Pre-calc – so far, it’s a rehash of Algebra II/Trig from last year – but that’s another discussion.</p>
<p>owlice,</p>
<p>That’s so true. D is in Honors Algebra 2 in school right now - and is doing pre-calc honors on her own. She’s finding a lot of overlap between the two courses - and is hoping that she can skip pre-calc in school next year thanks to this.</p>
<p>Subject test in June for Math II - hmm…I have to figure out how best to suggest this to her!!</p>
<p>arisamp, you might see whether she’s interested in taking a sample Math II subject test, “just to see what it’s like.” That should give her, and you, some idea as to how she would do were she to take Math II in June.</p>
<p>No calculus required on that test. It’s actually recommended to take the test as soon as possible after completing trig/pre-calc (maybe because calculus makes people overthink math problems! :D).</p>
<p>geek_son took it as a sophomore, finished it in very high spirits, and received the requisite high score for the STEM schools that ended up getting his interest later on.</p>
<p>Oh, and owlice… nice job with all that planning. Since getting up early on a Saturday and spending four hours pushing a pencil is not high on any young teen’s list of things to do, I think you’re smart to structure this part of his college preparation. Then he’ll have all the options open to him when it’s time for him to choose colleges and begin his applications.</p>
<p>I know that geek_son would have liked to have his standardized tests spread out just a bit more, and not have had any tests left at all to take in his senior year. Your son will be pleased with the results as a senior, as long as he doesn’t feel a great deal of pressure and burnout before he gets there. And stretching it out over the whole three years should help with that. I’d suggest you be sensitive to his attitude, though, and be ready to adjust your plans if he shows signs of test exhaustion.</p>
<p>owlice, based on the impression I’ve formed of your son, I’d recommend that he take the SAT in the winter or spring of his junior year (whichever is more convenient) and take three SAT II’s at a single time at the end of the junior year (May or June, depending on the number and schedule of AP exams). There might be a few schools that like to receive more than 3 SAT II’s, but none requires it. Actually, I think there’s a lot of overkill in the advice to spread out the SAT II’s over multiple test dates.</p>
<p>SAT II Math 2 does not have calculus, but it does include limits, which might be considered a calculus concept by some. For example, your son should know the limit of (1 + a/n)^n, as n goes to infinity, when he takes it (here ^n means “raised to the nth power”).</p>
<p>The one element of the plan to which I give a resounding “I don’t know” is the SAT II in Latin. How good is the Latin program at your son’s school? At the end of the third year course, will he be able to handle sight translations of Catullus, Ovid, Pliny, and Cicero with very minimal vocabulary glosses? Will he be rock-solid on the perfect passive periphrastic? Will he know 12 different situations in which the dative is required? Since you mentioned Hungarian, he may have a knack for languages. If he handles both grammar and translation <em>very</em> well, then he should do fine on the Latin SAT II. However, it’s difficult to find any good prep material to get an idea of the level of the exam questions, in this case.</p>
<p>I don’t want to “dis” the National Latin Exam. I think it’s great, and I’m very glad it’s offered now. But it might not be a good guide to performance on the Latin SAT II. On the National Latin Exam, about 10% of the students at each level receive Gold Medals; and even perfect scores do not guarantee mastery of the language (voice of experience speaking here). I suspect that a fair number of the students who do really well on the SAT II Latin come from schools where Latin begins in 5th to 7th grade. </p>
<p>To have one rough indicator of the general level of Latin instruction in your geographic region, vis a vis deciding on the Latin SAT II, you might check out the performance by students in your state on the AP Latin Vergil exam–the number of 5’s varies rather wildly, with a large number coming from the East Coast. There might also be state-by-state SAT II data available–if so, tokenadult can probably provide the link.</p>
<p>QuantMech, thanks! The kid is DONE with the SAT, however, and yahoo for that!! He took it earlier this month, did well, and will not need to take it again. His idea to take it; I was just the credit card lady in the background.</p>
<p>I’ll look for the SAT II data to see whether I can find it (a quick search did not turn it up). I did look at the AP data for 11th graders (no breakout data for 10th graders) in Maryland, and the mean scores are 3.37 and 3.25 for Lit/Vergil; number of 5s were 14 out of 49 test takers, and 11 out of 52, respectively. Would be more useful if I knew which of those students were from his high school, as there is only one Latin teacher there. </p>
<p>In any case, S may not take a fourth year of Latin, so if he’s going to take an SAT II in it, it will have to be at the end of this school year. He took to Latin like a duck to water; doesn’t mean he especially likes it, but he does well in it without effort. </p>
<p>And hey, it’s okay to dis the National Latin Exam! You wouldn’t be the first, and I’m sure you wouldn’t be the last!! </p>
<p>geek_mom, thanks. The kid does anxiety well, and if I can help guide him gently with some advanced planning to lessen it, I’d like to do so. That said, plans have changed quite a bit since my first post on this thread; S is thinking of going to college early. (And me with all the money for his college in the equity market, because I was going to start moving it in the second half of his sophomore year… I’m not ready for this.) </p>
<p>S wants to self-study for the AP Chem exam this coming May; he’s taking Honors Chem right now, and it’s another one of those “duck to water” things – doing well though not especially crazy about the subject matter. If he wants to, I’m certainly okay with that.</p>
<p>Owlice, can you post the link to find out the latin SAT II results by state please? Thank goodness my D’s school didn’t hold her bad latin SAT II against her. She got 4’s on both lit and vergil, then tanked the SATII. I know QuantMech was saying about taking 3 in the same sitting, but D said that by the time she got to Latin, her 3rd of the day, she just wasn’t able to concentrate like she should have. I don’t remember exactly, but I think you can take them in any order, and she said if she had to do it over again, she would have started with the Latin.</p>
<p>GA2012MOM, I haven’t found the SAT II results by state; I looked at the AP data, which are available here: [AP:</a> Exam Grades: Summary Reports: 2008](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>AP Program Results – Reports | College Board)</p>
<p>This isn’t by state, but here are stats on the SAT IIs [SAT</a> Data Tables](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-subject/scores/data]SAT”>College Board Will No Longer Offer SAT Subject Tests or SAT with Essay – College Board Blog)</p>
<p>owlice, I’ll have to go back to where you posed the questions about the Latin test, I read this thread when it was first active. My D a Jr just took the test and she did have to actively prep outside of her class but she did get a good score.</p>
<p>Thanks owlice, that’s actually what I meant.</p>