<p>Hi all, I am a new member, my son is a junior at an arts magnet high school but he is academically motivated toward a liberal arts education at a competitive college. His school is not known for academics, it is small, caters to artistic kids and offers very few upper level classes. However music is a big part of his life, and he has made commitments to ensembles there, so leaving the high school he loves to attend a more rigorous school just wasn’t an option.</p>
<p>He’s doing fine so far, taking advantage of every opportunity he can, and all he can do is the best he can do. But this year, his schedule got really messed up due to changes mandated by the local school board. The result is that he won’t be taking any classes required for SAT subject tests until senior year, obviously too late to take them. If his guidance counselor is going to attest that he has taken the most rigorous course of study available to him, and he will have all of those courses taken by graduation, is the fact that he cannot take these subject tests (or the ACT really) going to be a huge detriment at schools he is interested in, which include Oberlin, Occidental, Haverford, Northwestern, Wash U etc?</p>
<p>He may be able to take the Spanish test, as he will have completed Spanish III Honors this year, but I have heard that this isn’t a good one to take because scores are skewed downward by native speakers.</p>
<p>As for other subjects, he is not a math person and because he had to start with Algebra in high school due to moving and the requirements here, he only has Alg II Honors this year, not enough for the Math I test until he takes Pre-Calc/Trig senior year.</p>
<p>The highest science his school offers is Chemistry, which he took - they did no labs whatsoever and it is clear that, after looking at the review guide for this test, he is not adequately prepared for it. He did, incidentally win the Chem award last year, FWIW…There is no AP Bio, no Physics, no Stats.</p>
<p>He is in junior AP English, which is Language - am I correct in assuming that he needs the AP English Lit class in order to take the SAT II? There is very little lit on his English syllabus.</p>
<p>He wasn’t able to fit APUSH or Honors US History into his schedule last year or this year so that’s out until senior year. His school doesn’t offer World History but he is taking it at the local community college through a dual enrollment program. The problem is that he is only scheduled to take one semester of it (for a full high school credit). He was planning to forego the 2nd semester in order to take a college yoga class to fulfill his high school PE requirement (otherwise he has to take a full year of it at HS next year and will have to forego Spanish IV). Is it worth it to take the full year just so he can take the SAT II in World History, if it means losing a fourth year of his language to PE? He might want to major in History or International Studies, by the way.</p>
<p>Any advice on this would be appreciated. He is doing the best he can to make the most out of his school’s meager offerings, but I would hate for the SAT II hurdle to be so unsurmountable as to completely derail his plans.</p>