<p>My 8th grade S had an awful experience with his first go on the SSATs:
V 644 (41%)
M 680 (44%)
R 614 (26%)
T 1938 (35%)</p>
<p>He's a solid B student but clearly choked on this standardized test. He's considering some solid secondary schools (e.g., Berkshire, Taft, Loomis). He's planning to retake the test ASAP, but how badly did this SSAT affect his chances? Any other schools to consider?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Too late to sign up for the January test, sorry</p>
<p>Forgot to mention…he still has a year, as he’ll be applying next year for fall 2011 admission.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it now…if you take this year it won’t count toward the application. Besides it is alot of stress.</p>
<p>If he still has another year, that’s AWESOME! Like UF said, don’t stress over the SSAT now. It’s a waste of money since the scores can’t even be sent to the schools. He should definitely take this year to improve, though - at least get a C grade for the schools you listed. Of course, the SSATs aren’t a deciding factor. Good luck!</p>
<p>I know kids with low scores who got into some of those schools. You`ll be fine.</p>
<p>I think those are pretty low scores for many schools. Of course, his gpa, ec’s, interview, essay will all carry weight, but he should try to improve them. You can purchase a PSAT study guide and try to get him interested in reading - a lot. Read everything and anything. Get him a magazine subscription…analytical topics are always good. Encourage books. Still lots of time and room for improvement.</p>
<p>One year can make an incredible difference, more so because he is familiar with the test format. Some students just don’t have the exposure to the material (more a reflection on the school curriculum than actual smarts) to do well on standardized tests. </p>
<p>I second keylyme’s suggestions, get him a magazine subscription. Something which ****es me off about such tests are the passages they chose–boring as hell. It would be cynical to get him a boring magazine for the sake of SSAT (and PSAT/SAT in the near future), but it is certainly worth it getting a magazine of lengthy articles without the candor and/or “charm” or magazines such as Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, etc. Try Newsweek.</p>
<p>^^PV, “Newsweek” was precisely the magazine we got for our son, at his request. He does like “National Geographic”, though, and actually has it as his homepage.</p>
<p>How come 8th grade boys get lower percentiles than 8th grade girls? I’m an 8th grade girl applying for 9th grade and I got a 90th percentile without any preparation…</p>
<p>
Newsweek helped me get into some other magazines. I loved reading it. I have strayed away from it now, for various reasons. NatGeo is unfortunately too interesting to prepare you for something like the SSAT. </p>
<p>^Do you have any evidence to support your claim, RhythmMelon–or is it speculative based upon the 1-2 posts you have seen. Plenty of eighth grade boys get 90th percentile or more without studying (I don’t even see how you can really “study”). Maybe you are right, I am just curious as to how you have come to this conclusion.</p>
<p>Oh I don’t know, it’s just that I didn’t study my vocabulary section at all…I skipped like 10 words and got 8 wrong in analogies, and I got something like a 680 on my verbal section, still receiving a 75th percentile… This poster had a similar verbal score and has such a low percentile…</p>
<p>If anything, it goes to show that boys are better verbally (at that age) than are girls. I still don’t have the proper empirical data to prove that, but it is a good hypothesis.</p>
<p>well Putney would definitely take him and all the lower schools</p>