<p>laserbrother,
I think you are definitely “getting it” but it would sound so much better if your last line of your post above was, “After that, I think SHE IS done.” :)</p>
<p>MOT, with all due respect, I still prefer “we” because it IS a family process not matter how you look at it. </p>
<p>Please don’t argue about that here again. You have your way and we have ours. Thanks.</p>
<p>Sorry if you were offended, it was half in jest.</p>
<p>to purplexed re: post 18-- I commend you for your restraint, but I don’t think you have to be totally mute on the subject 
It’s HOW you approach it that matters.
Maybe asking your DD if she is satisfied with the results, without apparent judgement would work. I can usually tell if my kids are happy with their achievement by their attitude. If it’s, “shoot - I thought I did so much better than that!” maybe a retake is a good option. If it’s “Glad that’s over - I might have done better, but I’m fine with this.” then I’d let it go.
It’s a fine line between directing and advising, but you know your kid best.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>laserbrother, I suggest that she take Spanish only if she truly needs it (for example, if one of the colleges she intends to apply to wants it for placement). High scores are hard to get, perhaps because a lot of native Spanish speakers take the test and thereby ruin the curve for everybody else. The SAT II Spanish test was the one test for which my daughter was disappointed with her score.</p>
<p>For the many colleges that want two SAT Subject Test scores in different fields, your daughter is already in good shape. She has an 800 on a science test and a 750 in USH. This is fine. No need to take more tests unless the college specifically requires them (which it may for math).</p>
<p>I agree about the Spanish. Based on my kids’ performance, there is something strange about that test - what it covers and/or how it is scored. Your daughter should find out if other students who have been through the Spanish program at her high school have done well on SAT 2, because if their courses don’t cover what is on the test, she will not do well. </p>
<p>My son took the Spanish SAT 2 for placement in college at the end of his senior year, after five years of study and got a very poor score (in the 500’s). He is an excellent test taker and earned stratospheric scores on his SAT 1 and on five SAT 2 tests (Writing, USH, Physics, Math 1, and Math 2). When he got to college (Stanford), he took a placement test during orientation and scored well enough to place out of the required one year of Spanish. </p>
<p>Similarly, my daughter, who scored 700 or above on SAT Verbal, Writing SAT 2, and USH SAT 2 (she is not a top math student, but that is irrelevant to the Spanish issue), scored even lower in the 500’s than my son in her senior year. She had spent one month during the summer between junior and senior year in an immersion program in Spain, was in Spanish 5 at high school, and was tutoring a Spanish-speaking immigrant child and translating school information for his family at the time she took the test. She also placed out of Spanish (one year equivalent) based on a test given during orientation as a college freshman (Kenyon) and is now doing well in Chinese, so she does have an ability in languages.</p>
<p>Based on the above, I wondered if there is specific material on the Spanish test that my kids were not taught, or, as mentioned above, the scores are skewed by native speakers.</p>
<p>Son did not take foreign language SAT but he did take the foreign language AP which although difficult ended up giving him college credit and fulfilling hislanguage requirement. Something to consider. If you do poorly no harm done as no one sees it unless you want them to. SAT,however, will show up on score report.</p>
<p>Thank you, M & M on Spanish.</p>
<p>That was exactly what I told her - take it if you want to have fun but don’t expect too much. There are too many native speaking students taking these language tests. </p>
<p>DD is decent with her Spanish - far better than her laotian or Chinese. She will be in Spain for three weeks in summer, if she gets her passport!!!</p>
<p>I hope she gets her passport and has a great time in Spain! Both my kids spend time there in summer immersion programs, as I mentioned for my D above, and my son, after his freshman year of college. It was a wonderful experience for both of them! What city does she plan to visit, if I may ask?</p>
<p>Ah, congrats to your daughter! </p>
<p>Laserbrother, I happen to find your posts funny. In a good way—you show great resilience. </p>
<p>The best news about your daughter having good scores on record by the end of the Junior year is that she can now look at schools and programs as a reasonably qualified applicant. It doesn’t make schools less of a reach, but she can begin the more involved process of creating her list and begin to focus her apps and essays on who she is and how she will impact each school. </p>
<p>As an aside, My S was accepted to Yale with Junior year scores—not to worry on that note. He graduated HS in 2006, the year of the change to the new test format, fwiw. I felt bad for my son’s friends who were still testing and chasing ever higher numbers when apps were due. In CA, the UC app is due in Nov, and too many kids were stressed trying to reach their target. </p>
<p>Now on topic, your family is into the more interesting part of the process. Help your daughter reflect on who she is—her strengths, her passions & etc. My S had a list of personal qualities and interests that he believed distinguished himself. He felt that if he honestly represented who he believed himself to be, he could handle any rejection. He didn’t receive a single one.</p>
<p>Again, I refer you to Sybbie’s [post=3442086]fantastic list of threads[/post]. Read through DudeDiligence’s thread on [thread=118616]My Dinner with An Admissions Officer[/thread]:
</p>
<p>Lb, when I came across CC, I didn’t have a clue about any of this. I honestly didn’t know that students prepped for SATs, and I had never heard the term ECs. All I knew was that my S was a very smart student and actively pursued his interests. What we learned from CC and the experienced posters about the application process was invaluable. I’m trying to pay it forward now.</p>
<p>I also believe that the posters who are encouraging your daughter’s participation are trying to share their experience of seeing their own kids grow and learn from the process. I was always aware that I wanted the process for our S to be his own so that he could learn and repeat the experience when applying for internships, research programs, and the like. </p>
<p>While other parents worked on test scores, we worked on soft skills. How to approach admission’s officers, how to talk with professors, how to talk to students…on & on. I fully respect different parenting styles, and there is no single “right way.” I will also say that my son’s strength is not his high SAT scores, rather it is the fact that he has these personal skills in abundance, imo. </p>
<p>Oh and another invaluable lesson, I really learned a lot from soozievt’s common sense approach to helping your applicant learn to connect the dots, so to speak, with regards to showing fit to each school. Why leave it to an admission’s officer to try to connect the dots when your daughter can clearly articulate how she believes she will impact a campus. This process will be helpful when she decides which school to attend. </p>
<p>Again, good luck to your daughter. May her journey be a good one.</p>
<p>Great scores for your daughter LB.</p>
<p>Son took SAT and SAT IIs spring of sophomore year. His highest math score was from that sitting. Both his math portion of the SAT and the Math SAT II subject. Even though he ended up having to take the new SAT (UNC-CH insisted on new test) his math went down even though he was in Def Eq. at that time it just isn’t the same math (at least not for him).</p>
<p>However, his verbal score did increase each time he took it.</p>
<p>Princeton, MIT, Cal Tech, Chicago, Duke, Penn, and Harvard all used his sophomore scores, which he was later admitted to. He is also fluent in Spanish (completed AP Spanish Lang and Lit) and he did NOT take the SAT II for Spanish for all the reasons the above posters mentioned.</p>
<p>Rather he used Math II, Bio, Physics, Chem and US History.</p>
<p>He did retake the bio one later because after taking a class/research during the summer at the university it became much clearer to him and his score did improve to what was acceptable to him.</p>
<p>Again great scores for your daughter, CONGRATS!!!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>lb,
Those are great scores, 800 in Physics is impressive, that should ease some of your college admission anxieties, I know I have them too.</p>
<p>Off topic for a moment. Katwkittens, you too have been one of my favorite posters–very knowledgeable, very inspiring parent. What an accomplished litter you have. I’ve followed your recent posts on your other S to USNA. My S mentioned once again that despite being extremely happy at his school, USNA will always pull at him. Thanks for sharing your experiences.</p>
<p>Now, I really have to get off CC and get something done while it’s still relatively early in CA.</p>
<p>Marian – Good point, esp if LB’s D is looking at science programs. A lot of them WILL want to see a math SAT-II. However, LB – check on her list of schools to see if SAT-II sare required or optional. They are optional at about half of my son’s list.</p>
<p>Off topic again, agreeing with 3Ks that katwkittens is one of the wise souls of CC.
And for those who mentioned Spanish SAT IIs as having odd scoring, it was French that disappointed my D the most. Not low 500s, but not that far off. And that’s after three high school years and two middle school years of the language.
Next topic: Can someone make Sybbie’s fantastic list of threads a “stickie?”</p>
<p>The foreign language SAT IIs I’ve heard are very toughly curved because native speakers take the test too–who wouldn’t? My son had taken French I, II, IV and AP and got a 710–a very good score, but he was expecting higher until we heard about the curve.</p>