<p>A poster on another thread asserted that the "average" SSATs people talk about for BSs are actually "medians" (mid-points), and not "averages" (meaning means.)</p>
<p>I had been wondering about this myself. First, we had been surprised to see that while many NE schools claim averages between 88 and low 90's, OR below 80, very few give averages in the 80's. Second, we recently noticed that MDX (one of the schools our S is applying to) says their 85 is a MEDIAN. Choate's web site also says that most admitted students have SSATs in the mid-80's, again, more of a mean indicator.</p>
<p>Does anyone know the story here or have quotes from school materials or adcoms?</p>
<p>Usually they say either 'average' or 'median'. If it says 'average SSAT score', then it's the mean; it it says 'median SSAT score', then it's the median.</p>
<p>HI. I'm the poste you have read that quote from inquiring mind and it's median. Think aboout how many people, for various resons, have horrible scores these schools let in. If their scores were averages thank that average would be highly dwindled down, to like low 80's, high 70's at most schools in the first tier. I'm sure that Andover would still be quite high, but if SPS's median is 88 then their average is probably more like an 83 or lower. It's hard tofind this on their websites, but it says that the scores are medians in addmision material, fact cards, catalogs ext. </p>
<p>In responce to prettyckitty, that;s not true, boardingschoolreview.com reports all schools SSAT as means, you have to look on the info the schools give you, and it varies from website to printed material so be careful. If the info is the same in two places that the school publishes, but one says mean and one says median, then believe it's the median. Just like any fact, like stock reports, the publishers can twist it to make themselves sound better.</p>
<p>Assuming that the schools are reporting all SSAT scores, which I highly doubt. Many posters on CC report abnormally high SSAT and SAT scores. Any student scoring 75 or above is intelligent enough for law school or medical schools. The scores accepted by elite prep schools are no where as high as reported by anxious teens on this website.</p>
<p>"Assuming that the schools are reporting all SSAT scores, which I highly doubt. Many posters on CC report abnormally high SSAT and SAT scores. Any student scoring 75 or above is intelligent enough for law school or medical schools. The scores accepted by elite prep schools are no where as high as reported by anxious teens on this website."</p>
<p>no. not true. I doubt the schools would lie and take a risk of having a scandal.</p>
<p>also.. i asked my dorm fac, who's an adcom, he said 93% is the median, but the inhouse statistic shows that the average isnt that skewed, he said it's around 85-90 not to be specific. but he also pointed out that the bottom half of the class are almost reserved for legacies,athletes, special talents and URMs</p>
<p>Bearcats...."but he also pointed out that the bottom half of the class are almost reserved for legacies,athletes, special talents and URMs"</p>
<p>That simply is not true bearcats....No school would be so ridiculous as to base their decisions solely on ssat scores saying those under x must be reserved for legacies, athletes etc.</p>
<p>Let me point out that two of the largest correlation factors for SAT's and therefore the SSAT's as well areL</p>
<pre><code> 1) Family income
2) Parental level of education.
</code></pre>
<p>I know several cases in several tops schools... one of which was a Hotchkiss admittee this past fall who had test scores were well below 93.... and they were not a URM. In fact, they were just the opposite, a white male caucasion of the Jewish faith! </p>
<p>I know another who got into SPS off waiting list in 50's. </p>
<p>You really need to think more about the things you say and as I mentioned before... stop trying to compensate for that low self esteem with ego inflation using your school name and the rep you are trying to assign to it. It's a fine school, but lord knows it has a good share of problems as well. By the way... exactly how many kids do they take from Indian Mountain?</p>
<p>I checked with a top school adcom today. Some responses:</p>
<p>--"94 is our average, not median"</p>
<p>--"This is the hardest point in a hundred years to get into the competitive schools."</p>
<p>--"Athletic achievement is something we love to see, but athletes must still have excellent academics."</p>
<p>--"We love our alumni and would like to have families involved in and supporting the school. Like athletes, legacies must also show academic excellence."</p>
<p>--"We are commited to diversity and work with several organizations who bring us wonderful candidates. We take a holistic approach but ensure the applicant can do well here."</p>
<p>--As a relatively small school even if big by prep school standards, we do not students with a wide range of abilities. It's our job to ensure those accepted will do well here. All accepted are outstanding students as proven by standardized tests, school grades and recommendations.</p>
<p>"We could fill 3 classes with applicants with almost perfect scores. Although every year we have several applicants without appropriate scores for the school, we see few with SSATs below 70%."</p>
<p>My question is in line with this info -- so I hope you guys can help.</p>
<p>If my son wants to apply to schools where he would be in the top 25% academically, what do we look at to determine that? Mean or Median SSAT scores? GPA would be useless because the kids are all coming from different schools. Class rank might be slightly better -- but again, the schools differ so much (and I don't think most public middle schools rank kids).</p>
<p>and if it would be based on ssat scores -- how would you figure it? If SSAT scores are an average of 90%, what score would someone in the top 25% be?</p>
<p>i think higher than 95%, but again i m guessing, since a lot of my friends are like 98 99 but they are in the middle of the class....</p>
<p>but then, i dont think SSATs a good indicator, i think it's like a threshold. Above it everyone's equal....... it basically just tells that you can handle the level of work, but after that, it's the person's determination to succeed that matters</p>
<p>I actually meant the top 25% of an individual school. If the school would have the top 25% of the kids with 99% SSAT scores, that most likely would not be a good school for my son. </p>
<p>His current fave school shows an 82% SSAT average and an acceptance rate of 62%. How do you figure out what would be the top 25%??? Would you say that 50% got less than and 50% got more than that 82%, split the top 50% in half -- and come up with an average SSAT score of 91% and above for the top 25%?</p>
<p>My best friend goes to a school with an 81 average. First you have kids like her who are on almost full aid, they have high 90's and they're maybe 10%. Then they have a LOT of rich legacies that probably are at 50%. Everyone else is inbetween. She complains there are a lot of kids that maybe shouldn't be there.</p>