@texaspg – S14 took two SAT Subject tests and did very well. He asked several schools to which he was applying who did not require SAT Subject tests if, given his high scores, he should submit the test scores to them anyway. They responded that they would not even look at them. Their logic, explicitly stated, was that since they didn’t require the scores they felt it unfair to disadvantage kids who didn’t submit them in favor of a kid with high scores who did submit them.
@texaspg, that’s great to hear about the subject tests and collegeboard hopefully panicking. The students at my school are also starting to see how useless AP tests are and how in many cases they take the place of an elective and are deciding in senior year not to take them. The other day I told my principal that my S was not taking one AP test this year if he gets into the colleges he hopes to get into because they don’t accept them.
@waitingtoexhale, I sometimes wonder if there is a game being played here. The colleges say that they recommend, 2 but in actuality, you better have them, or when they say they require 2 you really better have 4. I once read on a Ivy League consultants website that you better take as many AP classes as you can and you should take and pass one or two AP tests in subjects where you didn’t even have the class.
When we visited USC school of engineering they told us that they do not require subject tests, unless for homeschooled applicants, but if students took them, they should send them in.
@Ballerina2016 that is UCLA’s and Berkeley’s suggestion also.
This SAT feels kinda different because S drove himself instead of me dropping him off. I did tell him I wanted to meet with him afterwards for a debriefing, i.e., find out how he thinks he did. He said I get 15 minutes and then he is going to a friends house for the rest of the weekend.
@Ballerina2016
“When we visited USC school of engineering they told us that they do not require subject tests, unless for homeschooled applicants, but if students took them, they should send them in.”
How should the word “should” be read in that statement? Should they be sent in if the applicant did poorly? If they wanted poor scores they’d require that subject tests be taken, or they’d require that all test scores be submitted. So what they’re really saying is to submit scores if the applicant did well.
So, tip of the hat to @Ballerina, as it’s a very useful piece of advice after my note above. Different schools handle this in different ways. Further testimony that when one is in doubt about any of this stuff it’s wise to speak to someone in the admissions office.
A couple of the schools that S16 is looking at “recommend” or “strongly recommend” that applicants submit ALL standardized tests that were taken. One of the schools’ website states that, like a transcript, it gives them a “full picture of the student.” Oh, c’mon. There’s a big difference between seeing the grades for all the semester courses that a kid took vs. all of the one-day tests that he/she’s taken.
S16 took the SAT’s twice, and two of his three scores were higher on the second sitting (the third score was an 800 on both sittings). Why would he submit the first sitting in the face of a “recommendation”? Of what purpose is a recommendation instead of a requirement in this situation? Some of this stuff is silly.
That is correct. If the applicant believes it is beneficial they should be sent.
DD is taking two science tests today not because she needs 3 tests, but because she is hoping to reach target score on at least one science test. As of now her science score she got in June is a liability to her application.
Well, I think DD just took her last standardized test, at least until grad school. She was lucky in that she took the SAT once and did very well. She also took two SAT Subject tests last year, aced one and the other was okay. Today she took one more SAT Subject test because she’s interested in a school that asks for three. (Why??) She had previously sent scores to a few colleges, including a lottery school that requires “all scores”. So I guess now we have to send this new SAT Subject test. Do you think we should send it alone, or resend “all scores” again? It seems insane to me that this process is so complicated.
For what it’s worth, last year for one of the SAT Subject tests, she found the test much easier than the prep book practice tests, which were impossible and psyched her out. Same thing happened this week – prep book practce tests much harder. The practice tests in the college board blue books are the closest to the actual tests, she thinks.
Next up: actually getting the applications done. I can’t wait until January!!
Even though I’m not a pediatrician, for many years when I was on call at the hospital I was required to attend all of the births in the labor & delivery suite, to make sure that the newborn was OK. One of my tasks was to assign the Apgar scores. Many parents would anxiously await the Apgar, as an objective measure that their baby was OK.
Frequently I’d deliver the score like this, “Your baby has a five-minute Apgar score of 9. Congratulations. He’s done very well on his first standardized test”.
Good luck/congrats to all the test takers, who hopefully are henceforth finished, at least until grad school! May the scores be forever in their favor.
Today is the first of several band competition weekends for S. Two months from now, it will all be done…permanently. I’m feeling just the least bit of nostalgia. I’d blame it on the rain but I fear @carolinamom2boys has gotten so much I shouldn’t complain.
Recommend has many interpretations in all likelihood but this is my take on subject tests:
I read recommend as “expected” for colleges and the fine print should be driving factor.
I would also read it as “If I can get an application fee waiver due to financial constraints then I don’t need to take the subject test”. In this case, the top colleges are providing many ways for poorer first gen type kids an incentive to apply and the financial reasons for not taking a test apply mainly to the 10-15% first gen low income category admits. I am betting that if a person applied to Princeton engineering and claims financial distress in taking the test, they will be automatically waived. For most of the other 90+ percent applicants, it is expected.
I like Yale’s and Stanford’s fine print on the other hand because it makes no financial distinctions while Harvard and Princeton seem to indicate money constraints as the primary basis for not having to take the test.
@petrichor11 It’s been raining for almost a week here. I know how your feeling about band competitions . Both son’s have played the viola since 6th grade. I’d be dishonest if I said I enjoyed every concert and practice session. Both boys hung up their instruments last year because of schedule conflicts with academics. I didn’t think I’d miss it as much as I do.
@mysonsdad I don’t think the colleges are playing a game. I think they mean what they say. My older daughter only took 2 SAT Subject tests and only did ok to good on them. I suggested a retake but she refused. She got into all the colleges she applied to including 2 Ivies.
@waitingtoexhale On Princeton’s website it says “strongly recommends” 2 SAT 2 subject tests for BSE students.
@petrichor11 The other day S was saying that he was thinking of not playing golf this season, and if he did, he wouldn’t play CIF if he made it. I told him I would like for him to play because after this year I will never see him play in a golf tournament again. I have been watching him play since 5th grade and I keep thinking that come May, I will watch him play his last tournament last hole ever. Also, this is his last year of Mock Trial, and I keep thinking that he will make his last closing argument in December. Yes, I am feeling sentimental too. Also, what’s rain?
@AsleepAtTheWheel, hilarious story there about subject tests. Regarding the sending of all scores, in you S case it makes no sense, but perhaps they want to see how many topics a kid has taking the test, but then I guess they would require it.
@Dragonlygarden: Yes, I know. I called SEAS in July, and spoke with an admissions/dept. head and was told that if a student were to submit to SEAS without both of the subject tests that they “recommend” it would not be reviewed , and that the student should just submit to the University on the whole.
@waitingtoexhale Have your son apply to the AB program. It is actually pretty easy to switch to BSE if it is done very early. My son has the same issue. He doesn’t have a science subject test so if/ when he applies to Princeton he will apply to AB and then try to switch to ORFE (BSE) if he attends.
I’m happy to see a move away from the reliance on so much testing, and the number of elite colleges dropping them altogether (Hampshire, for example). They’ve never been the only way for kids to show their worth. D’s SAT will in school on Oct. 14, but good luck to all of your kids there today. We are off for senior photos and dance practice. Somewhere along the line this weekend, D needs to write a paper as part of her senior projects, but that comes easy to her. Her school assigns very little homework.
Hey everyone, I dropped off for awhile to attend to being taxi driver for XC, chorus, and about a thousand other thigns, as well as to deal with stuff at work. This weekend S16 hit college prep work again in earnest, submitting his NMSF content earlier this morning, and now finishing the Common App. One of his prospective schools doesn’t require any supplemental essays, so it may be submitted today, too.
Then - XC practice, an hour’s drive to go to a soccer match tonight, then home, up, homework, more app stuff, church in the evening… I’m still not sure how we’re all getting everything done, but so far, so good. Summer AP homework? Seems like ages ago. I guess he had some? Most of his homework was for his honors seminar class, though. His gf, who is in college now, says that none of her current classes come close to the rigor or volume of that one, which I guess is good.