SAT Subject Tests help provide a context within which to assess classroom grades.
Among the many tests concerning college admissions, College Board offers 20 different hour-long SAT Subject Tests, including Literature, U.S. History, World History, Biology E/M, Chemistry, Physics, Math I/IC, Math II/IIC and written and listening tests in nine foreign languages. Each year thousands of students take the subject tests of their choosing, although not all are terribly clear on what role the tests serve in the grand scheme of admissions.
What They Measure
A student's performance on SAT Subject Tests demonstrates strength of mastery in what he considers to be his strongest subjects, since it is generally up to the student which ones to take. Schools requiring the tests generally require or recommend one of the math tests, but aside from that, a student presumably chooses the subjects he's strongest in or that are most relevant to his desired major. Strong performance conveys a student's readiness for college-level courses and gives insight into his potential to thrive in academic environments of the rigor characterizing the schools to which he is applying.
Providing a Context
As standardized tests less rooted in logic and strategy than the SAT, and instead more reflective of the structure and content of classroom material that students have seen all through high school, subject test scores can also help colleges put a student's classroom performance into context. For instance, low subject test scores can indicate that a student's A's may not truly reflect mastery or were simply products of a less demanding academic program, compared to another student's perfect test scores despite B's in similar courses at a different school. Or if a student has perfect subject test scores but C's in his corresponding classes, the juxtaposition may suggest that he's capable of being an excellent student but is perhaps lazy and unlikely to commit to the performance necessary to succeed in a given college's competitive and demanding academic environment.
Admissions Tools
SAT Subject Test scores are considered in conjunction with high school transcripts (conveying grades, GPA, difficulty of curriculum), SAT scores, teacher recommendations, extracurricular activities and essays to allow colleges a fairly complete sense of students' strengths, weaknesses and potentials as candidates. The score range is 200 to 800, with competitive scores typically beginning in the 600-range. High subject test scores can help offset scores that may not be as competitive on the more logic- and strategy-based SAT, by demonstrating your ability to excel with content-based material more like what characterizes classroom curricula. Some colleges require no subject tests at all, although submitting strong scores can still boost your standing as a competitive candidate.
Placement Tools
Typically, subject tests are required only by selective colleges that need as much information as possible upon which to base tough decisions regarding a plethora of strong candidates. However, some colleges --- whether they use subject tests in admissions consideration or not --- use them as placement tools, allowing students who perform well to receive credit for and/or opt out of relevant core requirements and introductory courses. Exactly how subject tests are used, and how much weight is placed upon them, varies from college to college.
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