Aren’t you glad I found your little corner of the internet? 
So do people study for the SSAT or should we just have her go in blind and take it? Will that be a better indication if she is ready/prepared for boarding school or is that insane and everybody studies before hand?
Kids do both. Best way to figure out where your child is - take a practice test. It could be at home, a real one the year before applications or around me some test prep centers give free mock tests. My kids tested well (they had also taken SAT for talent search in 7th grade), so didn’t do much prep. Some of it depends on math background too. They changed the rules a few years ago and tests taken spring of 7th grade can count for 9th grad application. If one does well enough (as you define it) that could count as a real test. They changed it when this year’s 9th graders were in 7th.
In 7th grade, I think it couldn’t hurt to review the concepts that are included in the test and ensure that her school curriculum will cover them adequately before she takes the test “for real” next year.
In our experience, it was better to have mastered the concepts through learning them beforehand, then trying to “study for a test”. We could never get our kids to seriously study for the SSAT, but all scored in the 90’s because they had mastered the concepts through their education.
It’s a test. Preparation will most definitely help performance. Simple familiarity helps too.
Ok practice tests it will be. She did the little 30 minute test tonight and there was some rushing and taking too little time which led to a dumb mistake. Why do some kids want to finish first so desperately?!
Figuring out and getting comfortable with the pacing was definitely what DC said was the most worthwhile part of taking the practice tests which is essentially how DC “studied” for the SSAT.
I have to say I went all Tiger Mom on my daughter this summer. I am a teacher, and I didn’t have to work, so from the day my daughter got out of school until she started eighth grade (except for two camps when she was away from home), we went over many drills and sections in Cracking the SSAT and ISEE and 900 Questions on . . ., both from Princeton Review. We also went over the material from The Official Guide from SSAT. We spent probably an hour and a half a day, going over the material in these books and drilling on vocabulary. My daughter had a couple meltdowns on the essays, but overall was cooperative because going to boarding school is her idea and she’s motivated. What was so disconcerting to me was that after the SSAT last Saturday was she said the verbal and reading parts were easy, but there was a lot of material in the quantitative sections that was unfamiliar. I felt betrayed by the Princeton Review books! She goes to a public school and is the advanced tracks for English and social science but the regular track for math. She has covered probably 10% of the SSAT math material, so I feel frustrated by our local public school system. Anyway, my kid studied because of my pushing and her own trust in me. We’re financial aid peeps, so I want her to have the best shot at getting in and getting financial aid. I have not been pushy like this with her grades in the past or with my other kid’s grades until this kid and her boarding school desires became evident. I’m grousing, but I feel I went above and beyond to help her. We’ll have to see what her scores say, but if the math score is poor, I’ll try the Kaplan book in the next month and a half. I wish I knew how best to help her excel on the SSAT!
I believe that the Testing companies put material on the tests that is unfamiliar relative to the recent study materials on purpose. Just grinding memorization and learning the problems in the study materials doesn’t necessarily measure a students problem solving ability, IQ and overall capacity or how to handle complete unknowns.
@CAClover get all the books you can from your interlibrary loan. My daughter was in public school last year but she did have algebra and a tad of geometry. My son was already in 9th grade honors geometry in our public school so he assisted on the practice problems if needed. In the public school “league” our math was pretty good and she was able to score into the 90th percentile each time. We opted to do October and December tests so the year would be farther along for the second sitting. Score was similar regardless… Math is an issue for students with less preparation for sure.
Okay, @MAandMEmom, that makes sense.
I am sure many have used this site, it helps diagnose gaps in knowledge. Our strategy for any standardized testing has been to diagnose what your kid doesn’t know and work to fill in the gaps. After trying practice tests- we would look at the questions they missed and what concept was covered. They spent 0 time on subjects they have mastered. We used khan academy to teach concepts they hadn’t been exposed to.
My kids are well past the SSAT testing years, but here’s how we approached it:
I think my main piece of advice is to NOT [SPLIT INFINITIVE FOR EMPAHSIS!] chase some score that you or your child “think” your he/she should get. If they are a mid-80%-ile test taker then accept that and shape your apply to list accordingly. <---- Again, not everyone agrees with this.
Another thing to consider is that, if you do chase a higher score and get there via rigorous prep…how is that kid going to fare at a rigorous school amongst peers who got 99%-iles cold? Are they going to want to put in the time to keep their head above water? Something to think about.
I wish boarding schools published the full range of SSAT scores of those admitted. Folks tend to get obsessed with pursuing a score above the stated average or mean, and forget that there are probably a lot of students with below average scores. A wise parent once confessed their kid’s scores may have actually decreased due to increased anxiety in chasing an elusive score. That same kid got into several BS with scores well below each school’s median or mean – with FA.
For the record, I have no idea what schools are her very new early list are looking for in scores. She scored in the 99% on her ieee tests a couple of years ago for 6th grade day school admitted, but chose not to go to the school in the end} but I know the SSAT is a different test. Harder I’m assuming…
% score is based on how others did, and not about difficulty of testing. %99 kids on ISEE is likely to have similar % score on SSAT as well.