<p>Back when my D applied, it was as AlwaysAMom wrote…SAT IIs were not required but “recommended.” Now, they are simply not required for Tisch applicants. So, for starters, it surely does not hurt to NOT submit SAT II scores for Tisch admissions. You don’t need them. </p>
<p>However, if your D does well on them, or in her case, they are even better than her SAT scores, they cannot hurt to send them and can only HELP. They will be seen, even if not required. Also, starting next month, the College Board is going to a Score Choice system. So, your D could take the SAT IIs and decide after she sees her scores, which ones to send, which was not the case when my kids applied to college. </p>
<p>My D took three SAT Subject Tests (one was Writing, which at the time, had not yet been added to the regular SAT test…she took the SATs and the SAT IIs in tenth grade which was 2004 for her). Her other schools (all BFA schools) did not require them. She submitted all SAT and SAT Subject Test scores to her colleges (well, of course you had to submit all or nothing then). I have no way of knowing what the admissions committees thought of her. However, my gut feeling is that her SAT Subject tests, particularly two of them which were extremely high, had to HELP. They surely could not have hurt. Her regular SATs were very good, however, and so that was not an issue. Also, in her case, I feel that since she was applying as a junior in HS, age 16, it couldn’t hurt to have shown achievement in those subjects since they only had 2 1/2 years of HS grades to look at. That was not why she took the tests but I am just saying that scores can HELP if they are good, and cannot hurt if they are not since the Subject Tests are NOT required. THey can’t take bad SAT II test scores against you as you are not required to submit them and many do not. But given score choice starting in this next cycle, and if your D has good scores (or in her case, perhaps to balance out less than good score on the SAT), perhaps the Subject Tests could help her. The ACT also is a subject test based test. For anyone else, I am not saying you need to take these tests at all but if you do and get a decent score, it is beneficial to submit it.</p>
<p>I have to admit that when my D took the SAT Subject Tests in tenth grade, she signed up as a matter of course for them since her older sister, who was a college applicant at the time, had to take them for the colleges she had applied to. We just assumed that D2 would need these too. Turned out that none of her BFA schools required them and Tisch, back then, recommended them. But she did all of her testing in tenth grade and we were not really examining the required testing on applications at that point.</p>