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<p>Even if one does not need to take the SAT subject tests, knowing if your high school is good can let you know if its courses will prepare you adequately for college, or if you will have to supplement on your own to avoid needing to take remedial courses in college.</p>
<p>It is a common mantra around here that one should take the AP course before taking the SAT subject test. This sounds like overkill, given that the SAT subject tests cover high school level material, not AP or college frosh level material. This theoretically means that a student who gets an A in the regular high school course should have no problem getting a high score on the corresponding SAT subject test (my own experience decades ago matched that, scores over 700 on three Achievement tests (as SAT subject tests were called then) based on regular or honors high school courses at a school where about a third of graduates went to four year colleges). But it appears that the mantra that one should take the AP course before taking the SAT subject test indicates that people around here do not trust the quality of their high schools’ courses, even though the demographic on these forums is predominantly upper income with access to the best public and private high schools where nearly all graduates go to four year colleges.</p>
<p>Publishing the correspondences between grades and SAT subject and AP scores would shed some light on whether the mistrust in the quality of a given high school’s courses is justified, although it may be less practical with SAT subject tests if few students take them.</p>