<p>Uhm, D'yer Maker:</p>
<p>I congratulated her whole heartedly. My exact words were: "You still have an excellent shot!! Your the average SPS student! Be happy!"</p>
<p>My knife, your knife. Perhaps yours has more practicality but they are, essentially,...just knives. They have the same purpose.</p>
<p>itsren: Frankly, I have no idea what it all means. This whole conversation about 87%ile being a "C" at SPS is too bizarre and I never should have weighed in during the free-association chatter of 8th graders. I knew that this was going to be an exercise in futility when I couldn't come up with a way to explain the math using unicorns and puppies.</p>
<p>unicorns and puppies?
Some 8th graders are a little smarter than that...
and some aren't.</p>
<p>Oh come on, D'yer Maker. Go ahead and try. Dont worry, I wont cry when I see no bunnies or Powerpuff girls in your explanation. And, for the record, I'm in 9th grade. Being practically 15 years old, I am insulted that you would look down upon us with such scorn as to say that we are unable to comprehend an adult like yourself. Give me a break.</p>
<p>So hit me. Please explain to me YOUR logic.</p>
<p>Come on guys... don't start a petty little CC fight here.. </p>
<p>and if this was started cause i asked what "ontological meant.."
i realized i did like 5 minutes after i wrote that (or i looked it up, same thing)</p>
<p>itsren -
You do NOT have to take the SSAT over to be a competitive applicant at SPS (or any school for that matter).
The SSAT is ONE piece - you got an acceptable score for SPS
Grades are another piece - you certainly have acceptable grades for SPS
So, it comes down to teacher recs, essay, interview and EC's.
Good luck.</p>
<p>a "C" may have a negative connotation when it's on your report card, but a "C" (SSAT average) at a top boarding school has to have a much more positive connotation.</p>
<p>mj93--
Thats what I'm trying to convey but people take it as if I'm saying that they're not good enough. Fitting in with the bright students at a potential school is great!</p>
<p>damn i wish i went to st pauls. My sister went there and its the most beautiful place ive ever seen. (anybody know any colleges like that)</p>
<p>Oh, I get it! The whole point about an average SSAT score being the equivalent of a C means...nothing? Well, not quite nothing...because you're saying it means the opposite of what a "C" normally connotes. How many other ways can we carry water in a sieve while analyzing SSAT scores?</p>
<p>Do you mind explaining that to me using more references to Justin Timberlake and rainbows?</p>
<p>BSR now lists SPS's average SSAT at 82%. I think it was 88% last year. Why the drop? Well, my educated guess is that SPS prioritized several different objectives this last year, and ended up accepting kids with a LOT lower SSAT scores in order to develop a certain level of community diversity and possibly to field athletic teams, orchestra, dance corps, etc. Meaning, they were not only looking to high academics and high testing. But what if an applicant does not add to the diversity mix or is a star athlete or a gifted musician, dancer, etc? Then, I would think that for THAT applicant, 82% is very misleading - and that applicant should have a much higher level of academics and testing - I would say SSAT in the 90's% would be more common for that applicant to be offered admission (plus high grades, etc.). </p>
<p>My daughter is in her first year at SPS and the most diversity she added was geographical (we're from a relatively unrepresented area of the country), and while she is an athlete and is competing on the interscholastic teams, she certainly was not recruited for athletics. She had the "other" stuff - good SSAT (93 or 94 - can't really remember now) and great grades and recommendations, etc.</p>
<p>Another thing to think about is the relatively ambiguous term "average" SSAT. Does this mean, as I imagine it does, that it is the mean score? We all remember the distinctions between mode, median, midrange, mean, and average. Probably average refers to the arithmetic mean...but maybe not. But it is HIGHLY unlikely that it would be equivalent to half of the people with higher scores and half with lower scores (a sort of midrange or median..). What you would probably find is that you have a large cluster of kids in the 90s, and then a few kids in the 60s (or possibly lower?)</p>
<p>Oh - and I just checked on BSR and it said average SSAT is 81%. I could swear that it said 82% the other day.</p>
<p>My guess (emphasis on guess) is that BSR calculates the mean percentage, with the school inputting the information periodically. And BSR uses some cut off dates for the relevant data.</p>
<p>For example, I saw a similar situation last year when Hotchkiss went from ~20% acceptance rate to ~5%. This occurred in January, I think, and the numbers surely were not that low nor had they just gotten around to inputting data from the previous year. Instead, I think, they had some statistically insignificant additional data that they added. (Does Hotchkiss take a few midyear admits, perhaps?) And those numbers -- for whatever reason they were inputted from data outside the general pool -- ended up being skewed once they got averaged with data that was previously inputted into BSR by the school.</p>
<p>In the case of what you observed, maybe SPS has been adding data from waitlist acceptance students, meaning you're seeing the median for that pool of students.</p>
<p>The schools often provide these statistics on their web sites or in printed materials. That's obviously more reliable information. I certainly wouldn't take a look at an aberration in numbers on BSR and try to draw conclusions about corresponding changes in the admissions process or standards from those figures. My guess is -- of course -- no better than yours, but I'm thinking the explanation for the aberrant information is tied into quirks with the way BSR calculates percentages and means or the fact that a school may be inputting data on a piecemeal basis.</p>