April 1, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR CAROL TOMAN IN IL
Which you choose is up to you, but I don't think you should take both.
Most schools want 3 SATIIs and they should be distributed in different
areas to show your breadth. Take one in English and math, or a foreign
language and social studies, as well as one in biology. All tests that
you take will be reported (you used to be able to choose which tests to
send, so taking extras meant that you could pick your highest scores).
The tests are expensive so you'll get the most influence for your money
by diversifying. If you haven't already studied "how to take the SAT",
do so now. There is a lot of power in pyching-out the test. Good luck.
********************
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
Colleges are more interested in seeing that you are serious about
your studies than in seeing exactly which subject interests you most
right now - so I don't think there's a "right" answer. But, for each
particular college there might be a bias toward organismal biology or
ecology or molecular biology. If you see that the schools you are
thinking of applying to offer a lot of courses in one and very little
of the other, that's a reflection of the values and interests of
their faculty. It seems from your question that you will want a
college that can give you some of both. If you want your SAT II
preparation to carry over into a head start in college, you might
look at the content of the entry-level biology curriculum at each
school - it could be more molecular or more wholistic and ecological.
Ideally you'll find some of each.

Years ago there was rather a hostile relationship between molecular
biologists and organismal biologists. The molecular types were in
general the young upstarts, sure that they could explain every living
thing in terms of molecules. The old guys grew up with the labels
'zoology' and 'botany' and thought that whole animals were more
interesting than their molecules. They muttered things like, "Ask a
biochemist how a watch works and he'll throw it into a Waring
blendor." I was a young biochemist at the time; I remember when one
of the old biochemists muttered contemptuously, "Molecular biology!!
Molecular biology is just the practice of biochemistry without a
license!"

This sort of childish squabbling seems to have died down. The power
of molecular biology is unmistakable, but so is the fact that
explaining whole organisms and ecosystems requires attention to
higher levels of complexity. The time is ripe for explaining more
and more complex, organized processes and structures at the molecular
level. But the popularity of molecular methods came at the expense
of subjects like taxonomy, so that now we realize that species are
going extinct before they have even been formally named and
described. There's a need in science for people with very different
kinds of interests.