Boarding Schools and SSATs: Do they consider each of 3 sections?

Prep School Admissions
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Looking at several top boarding schools (Deerfield, Taft, Choate, Loomis, Hotchkiss etc.), and am curious about how admissions folks tend to look at SSAT scores vis-a-vis their ‘breakdowns’ by section. If a student has a 2200 (87th %ile), but is near perfect in verbal and reading (93-95%ile) and much lower in quantitative (60% ile), will they A) consider the student as a ‘2200 tester’ (ie face value of the score without much consideration for components), B) consider the student a mid 90%ile student (tester) who is just weaker at math (and be ok with that:) (will call this ‘the rose-colored-glasses view on scores’ scenario), C) good scores, but too weak at math to consider the student (will call this ‘worst test component drives view on scores’ scenario)

I’m new at this so just trying to get a sense of how scores are viewed by admissions, esp in terms of the breakdowns…

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Boarding Schools and SSATs: Do they consider each of 3 sections?

Yes

Some schools will choose A. Some schools will choose B. Some schools will choose C. It depends on the school, but B or C is most likely.

It is what it is, so if your question is will they ignore or not notice the math score, the answer is no

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I spoke with an admissions director last year (one of the schools on your list) who said he was looking for multiple data points. For example, if someone had a marginal grade in a math class but did really well on the quant section and received a good math rec then he wouldn’t worry as much about the class grade. If the quant score was poor, then he would look at grades and recommendations.

Just a single anecdote that may be helpful.

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Every AO I spoke to when my kids applied (pre Covid) said that they cared about the section scores more than the overall % - obviously because a high % can still hide a low section score. They are trying to make sure that your kid can handle the work. A very low section score is a data point in making that decision.

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I was told by an AO (pre-COVID) that they also take into account where the applicant went to school.

A 65 percentile in math is a red flag if the applicant goes to a well known K-8 private school where SSAT prep is part of the curriculum.

A 65 percentile in math is not a red flag if the applicant is from a low performing public school district and the applicant is acing the highest level math class their school offers.

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While it has been quite awhile since I worked at one of those schools, from my time there, we would have said exactly the above. A 65% in math from would not be a red flag from a low performing or even middling public school. It would be absolutely fine. It would be a bigger concern (enough to warrant a conversation in the office but still not enough to completely eliminate a student) if they were coming out a high performing school. So then even more attention would be paid to the math teacher’s recommendation to try to get some context.

Also, referring back to an recent conversation on this topic:

I just wanted to point out that we did mean it when we said that the school superscored. Yes, the admissions offie could see when a student’s first sitting of the SSAT resulted in a low section score, but if that section score went up in a second sitting, they used that section score in their final decision making process. Yeah, we might wonder why the section was low in the first sitting, but it was seen as a positive when a applicant was able to study hard in order to make a significant improvement in the second sitting assuming the other sections didn’t drop dramatically --some fluctuation was expected and didn’t cause concern. I don’t remember a single conversation in which the school worried that the higher second sitting was due to cramming and then forgetting.

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