This varies, as not all schools have the same administrative structure.
However, if you (or your parent/guardian) ask at the main office, they should be able to direct you to the correct person. Caveat: if they have little experience with US boarding school applications, it may take some extra explaining. At least, they seemed confused at my kid’s (US, public) school. Irony: my kid’s English class was reading “A Separate Peace” at the time. (Why that book is still popular in public school curriculums is beyond me. It is the literary equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard for me. Actually, worse.)
Thx for all the replies, the forms and letters of recs have been requested! Going back the SSAT, when I got my SSAT scores back, I also paid to be able to read the written essay as well. My SSAT scores were good enough but my essay was lower mediocre at best. I literally cringed as I perused the cliche thesis and stumbled upon rushed sentences without any sort of eloquence. I feel like the essay didn’t capture the extent of my writing ability- should I have to worry about this being detrimental to my application?
From what I have heard from staff and experts in admissions, they are looking for ideas and quality of writing in the limited time that SSAT gives. Some vocabulary words there will embellish it. They do understand that 25 minutes is too short to show the full repertoire of your writing skills.
No. The AOs know that you had 25 minutes. They are looking for some clarity of thought and reasonable grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. They may compare this to your application to see if the latter sounds like you (or your parent, consultant, chatgpt, etc…)
It’s pretty rare that sometimes will whip off a real masterpiece in that time, and that’s not the expectation.