So I recently got my SSAT scores back and I didn’t do well at all.
I go to one of the top 10 all girls private school in the country and I am in the 8th grade. I am applying to both Phillips, Lawerenceville, and Milton. Would I have a fair chance to get in with these scores. I am thinking about taking it again in January.
Extra Curricular Activities:
Fencing- nationally ranked and rated (very hard to do)- 6 years
Piano- 9 years
Violin- 6 years
Business School: 1 year
4-H Science Program- 5 years
Verbal: 737
Quantitative: 746
Reading: 683
Total Scaled Score: 2,166
Percentiles
Verbal: 89
Quantitative: 91
Reading: 70
Total Percentile: 89
I think your assessment is a little ridiculous. 90th percentile is perfectly fine for all of these schools. It is not going to keep you out. You dont mention your grades which are equally important. There are plenty of legacy and other special bucket candidates with far worse scores. The key for you is 1) What can you contribute to the school besides academics and 2) Do you need financial aid? If you dont need FA you are competitive. If you do then you are in a tougher bucket.
89%-tile is an amazing score and you should be proud of yourself and feel accomplished to have achieved such a great score. Academic grades play an equal if not larger role in the admissions process so telling us info about that could make our responses more helpful.
Your scores are “in the zone” for any of those schools. Retake if you want to, but don’t let studying for it consume your life. If you’re writing your essays over break, your time is much better spent on those. Test scores the schools see if you can handle the workload. Based on those, you can. Your essays are much more important. They’ll be read by many people wading through test scores, transcripts, teacher recs, and AO notes. Their only chance to “meet you” directly is through your writing. Best of luck!
Agreed on SSAT scores. One of my kids fenced epee for a few years and your ranking is indeed an accomplishment! You are a very strong applicant! Good luck to you!
Your scores are competitive at all these schools. Based on your fencing stats, I think Lville would be particularly interested in you.
Lville has a strong fencing program, varsity and jv teams, with some nationally ranked fencers and at least one Olympic level fencer currently enrolled. The other schools you cite do not maintain varsity or jv fencing programs. Exeter has a fencing club, Andover offers fencing as a non competitive instructional course. I don’t know if Milton has a fencing club.
I would say that your scores are a little below average (Andover/Exeter’s averages are both 95%), but your ECs look very strong (especially the fencing), so the SSATs shouldn’t matter too much. I agree with @Center: If you don’t need Financial Aid, then you have a pretty good chance at admission. If you do, it might be a little harder.